Environmental, labor and trucking groups this week filed for an emergency injunction to stop the Bush administration from opening U.S. roadways to Mexican truckers,
claiming the move would substantially increase diesel emissions.
The diverse groups filing the petition Monday included Public Citizen, the Environmental Law Foundation, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the California Federation of Labor AFL-CIO and the California Trucking Assn.
Last week, President Bush announced his decision to open U.S. highways to Mexican trucks beyond the 20-mile commercial border zones now in place.
But the groups seeking the stay claim the government has not adequately reviewed the trucks' effect on air quality in the United States.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the government until today to respond. A ruling is expected in the next couple of days. If the stay isn't granted, trucks could be traveling on U.S. highways this month.
The coalition, which sued the government in April to stop the trucks from operating in the United States, wants to maintain the status quo until the legal dispute is resolved. A 1982 moratorium banned Mexican trucks from the United States.
Dave Longo, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said the suit was under review and the agency wouldn't comment on it.
Bush's decision complies with a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the government found letting the trucks in would have "no significant impact" on the environment. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has said Mexican trucks would be held to the same standards as U.S. operators.
But the groups say the decision disregards federal clean air requirements and will let high-pollution vehicles into the country. Al Meyerhoff, an attorney for the groups, said more than half the trucks in the Mexican fleet date from before 1994, when there were fewer regulations on their emissions.
Despite the uproar, the American Trucking Assns., which has favored the rule change, contends that there will be little immediate consequence. "It's going to be an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process," said Martin Rojas, director for cross-border operations for the Virginia-based group. He noted that only 130 Mexican firms have applied for permits to operate in the U.S. Of those, 60 have been approved pending audits.
"In Mexico, a very large company has 150 trucks," Rojas said. "There are about 2.6 million Class A trucks in the United States. We're talking about a speck in the trucking universe of the United States."
Mexican truckers agreed that few would immediately take advantage of the opening, largely because of safety restrictions imposed by Congress last summer. According to CANACAR, the largest Mexican trucking association, only about 30,000 of the 140,000 trucks it represents meet U.S. safety and environmental standards for hauling cargo north of the border.