Roadblocks on the Border

Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), a member of the House subcommittee on highways and transit, said he had a hard time believing that. At a March 13 hearing, he referred to a memo signed by U.S. and Mexican officials last fall that said at the end of the 12-month period that a "full and permanent opening of the border is foreseen."

Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) chastised Peters in a March 14 letter for not alerting the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the announcement of the pilot program. She gave no inkling at her confirmation hearing last September that such a move was being considered, Pryor said.

Transportation officials said they had no intention of making that memo a binding document. The administration simply seized the moment, after Mexico recently agreed to let U.S. inspectors audit trucks in Mexico, to announce the program.

"No final decision will be made about next steps until a thorough evaluation of the demonstration project is completed," said Ian Grossman, a spokesman for the motor carrier safety office.

Supporters of the administration plan include trade groups representing U.S. trucking companies and U.S. shippers.

John Ficker, president and chief executive of the National Industrial Transportation League, a Washington-based trade group representing some 600 shippers, said the government should live up to its NAFTA obligations. He also said Mexican carriers "should subscribe to any of the rules that apply to a U.S.-based carrier, including safety. Period."

A few American trucking companies already have set up shop in Mexico. Others said they were having doubts about traveling south of the border.

Contract Freighters, a privately owned, nonunion company in Joplin, Mo., has been shipping goods into Mexico for 20 years. That trade now accounts for 40 percent of its revenue, said Herbert Schmidt, president and chief executive.

He said he had misgivings about changing the current arrangement, where U.S. trucking companies have Mexican partners doing the hauling into Mexico.

He said that during the last three months, four of his company's textile-filled trailers were stolen at gunpoint in Mexico, though Mexicans were driving.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has long opposed what it views as a potential flood of cheap labor competing for its drivers' jobs while using what it claims are unsafe rigs.

"They do not meet our standards," Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said in an interview. "It's not a level playing field when these people come in here with fake log books and they are on drugs. There is not one drug testing facility in Mexico. We are talking about drivers who buy a commercial driver's license in Tijuana."

Cindy Skrzycki is a regulatory columnist for Bloomberg News. She can be reached atcskrzycki@bloomberg.net.