Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have come up with a compromise on the issue of allowing Mexican trucks further access in the United States the first of next year.

Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) have offered up a plan to soften safety requirements passed earlier this year, trying to avoid a threatened veto from President Bush.
As part of the current fiscal year’s transportation appropriation bill passed this summer, the House passed a provision that would essentially ban Mexican trucks from entering the country as called for by the long-delayed North American Free Trade Agreement. The Senate version called for tougher safety requirements and more inspections at the border. The Bush administration proposed allowing Mexican trucking operations to operate in the U.S. for up to a year and a half, while safety inspections of their facilities, equipment and drivers were conducted.
Both plans have been stalled while a conference committee has been put together to iron out differences in the legislation.
According to published reports, Murray and Shelby’s plan calls for inspections of Mexican trucks and their drivers every 90 days. While the original Senate bill calls for all border crossings to be equipped with fixed scales, as well as weigh-in-motion systems, to verify the weight of all Mexican trucks, the compromise calls for these systems only at the 10 busiest crossings.
The legislation would also allow the Transportation Department to create safety policies for dealing with Mexican trucks without having to go through the usual time-consuming regulatory approval process.
A White House spokesperson says the Bush administration is reviewing the proposal.
In the meantime, members of the House-Senate Conference Committee hope to begin meeting this week to finally resolve this legislation, which was supposed to have already been passed and signed into law by Oct. 1.