SENATE VOTES TO BAN CREAKY
MEXICAN TRUCKS FROM U.S. ROADS

By a 74-24 margin, the Senate on September 11 voted to ban creaky, uninspected Mexican trucks from U.S. roads.

The vote was on an amendment to the money bill for the Transportation Department for the year starting October 1. That amendment is like one that the Teamsters pushed through the House earlier this year.

Both sidetrack a “pilot program” to let the trucks in that the Bush regime’s Transportation Department started on September 6. The program would be killed because the amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) bans spending money on it.

Bush’s “pilot program” would let Mexican big rigs from up to 100 selected firms roll over all U.S. roads, not just those within 25 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Those firms are supposed to be the ones that meet federal rules concerning driver fatigue, truck inspections, safety inspections and drug and alcohol tests for the drivers.

The Bush regime said it would let the big rigs roll even though a Transportation Department inspector general’s report issued on September 6 said none of the conditions had been met. The IG’s report was issued late in the afternoon and an hour later the Bush Transportation Department announced it wanted the program to start.

That led some senators to charge the Bush regime with a foregone conclusion: Being determined to let the Mexican trucks roll, and endanger U.S. drivers, without even waiting for the facts. That’s the same argument Teamsters President James Hoffa has been making against letting the Mexican trucks roam all U.S. roads, with unsafe ones endangering U.S. drivers.

“While the Department of Transportation officials inspecting Mexican trucks took steps to certify onsite data, they noted certain information was not available to them,” Dorgan said. Quoting from the Inspector General’s report, he added: “Specifically, information pertaining to vehicle inspections, accident reports and driver violations maintained by Mexican authorities was not made available” to the U.S. Transportation Department.

“Yet this administration is so anxious to move that they took only one hour to evaluate the IG report. They tell us: ‘Don’t worry, be happy. We have all this under control,” Dorgan continued. “Is this one of those ‘trust us’ claims? I think we have had enough of those ‘trust us’ claims. How about verifying just a bit some of the basic information we need to know?” about the Mexican trucks, he asked.

He also said the Bush DOT lacks “site-specific plans” to inspect all Mexican trucks, as it promised. That “increases the risk” the trucks “could avoid checks.”