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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (19733)	7/30/2001 8:25:45 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Here's a bit more on the truck issue. I found it interesting and somewhat disconcerting that 24 percent of US trucks flunked inspections. After that it's hard to get exercised over 37 percent for Mexican trucks. Tucson, Arizona Monday, 30 July 2001 Teamsters key players on Mexican trucks issue By Philip Shenon THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON - A lobbying campaign led by the Teamsters union to keep Mexican trucks off U.S. roads is on the verge of handing organized labor a major legislative victory over President Bush. The campaign is endangering one of Bush's most cherished foreign policy goals and serving as a reminder to the White House of the political muscle still flexed by labor unions. If the Teamsters prevail, it could undermine the president's hopes of improved trade and diplomatic ties with Mexico, which has demanded the opening of the border to Mexican trucks under terms of the 8-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Bush had hoped to comply by next year. NAFTA and its liberalized trade rules have long been a target of the Teamsters, which has 1.4 million members, many of them truck drivers. The union's critics offer grudging admiration for its tactics in the legislative battle. They say the key to the union's success in blocking Bush's open-border plan has been its ability to turn the debate from one of protectionism - the desire of American truckers to prevent low-paid, non-unionized Mexican drivers from taking their jobs - to one of public safety. The House voted last month to retain a near-total ban on Mexican trucks on U.S. roads outside a 20-mile-deep border area. The Senate is nearing a vote on a measure that, while less restrictive, would still impose strict security and insurance standards on Mexican trucks and probably would delay a full border opening for years. Bush, who has become a friend of Mexican President Vicente Fox's and has made clear that he wants closer ties with Mexico to be a central legacy of his presidency, is threatening to veto this year's $60 billion transportation spending bill if it contains the House or Senate restrictions. But the Teamsters and their allies - including a large, bipartisan group of members of Congress, many of them Republicans who usually side with the White House - appear convinced that a veto could be overturned. Their argument is bolstered by government studies showing that Mexican trucks entering the United States fail safety inspections at a higher rate than U.S. trucks; about 37 percent of the Mexican trucks inspected at the border last year were removed from the road because of safety violations, compared with about 24 percent of U.S. trucks inspected. The administration has said it would beef up inspections and put a program in place to scrutinize the safety programs of Mexican trucking companies that would be given permits to operate in the United States. But the Transportation Department's inspector general, in testimony this month, questioned whether those plans were adequate to ensure safety. In a procedural vote last week, 70 senators - 19 Republicans, all 50 Democrats and one independent - suggested that they would support the measure to restrict Mexican trucks. "We have lobbied tremendously on this," said Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. Hoffa has appeared on Capitol Hill repeatedly in recent weeks to press members of Congress face-to-face to block Bush's plan. "The issue of unsafe trucks coming up from Mexico is one that all of the American driving public should care about," Hoffa said in an interview. "You could have trucks coming across the border with no brakes, with no insurance, with untrained drivers, carrying hazardous waste. It's untold the number of catastrophes that could happen." The union's lobbying campaign has a been a traditional one, carried out in coordination with consumer-protection and environmental groups that also say they oppose the opening of the border on safety grounds. "I don't think this is happening just because of the Teamsters," said Joan Claybrook of Common Cause. "But I do think the Teamsters have done excellent work." All content copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star