The latest skirmish in the battle over long-distance trucking across the Mexican border occurred Tuesday, when Transportation Secretary Mary Peters went before Sen. Byron Dorgan,
D-N.D., to defend her decision to go ahead with the cross-border pilot program despite Congress's vote to cut off funding.
Dorgan, as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, was a leader of the campaign to cut the program's funding and is incensed by the administration's decision to keep it going.
Dorgan said the intent of Congress is clear. "The Department of Transportation is prohibited from using appropriated funds to operate this program. Yet Secretary Peters has found lawyers who are willing to tell her that some technical loophole in the language allows the pilot program to proceed."
Peters said that the administration looked closely at the language and concluded that the prohibition against "establishing" a cross-border program does not prohibit funding for a program already in existence.
The argument over legality will be played out in several venues. Dorgan has asked the Government Accountability Office for an opinion on whether DOT is violating a law that prohibits using appropriated funds in a way that is contrary to congressional intent. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco is considering a suit by Public Citizen, the Teamsters and others contending that the program is both illegal and unsafe.
Dorgan is not pursuing a legislative maneuver to stop the program. He did warn Peters, however, that the issue is far from over.
"This is not rocket science," he said. "You understand exactly what the Congress was intending last year. You have a responsibility here and you will meet it, because failure to meet your responsibility under the law will bear consequences."
The consequences are likely to show up in this year's appropriations process. Meanwhile the program continues, pending possible reversals from the GAO or the San Francisco court.
The program permits long-distance cross- border hauling by up to 100 Mexican and U.S. carriers for a year. DOT's plan has been to use the program to see if the control mechanisms it has put in place are effective, and if they are to open the business further as permitted under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(For a complete report, see the April issue of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine.)