MEXICANS' TRUCKS DEBATE * USA - Fed Fights for

Washington,DC,USA -AP, by SUZANNE GAMBOA -10 March 2008: -- Transportation Secretary Mary Peters surrounded herself with some well-known U.S. exports — corn, rice and Jack Daniel's whiskey — to dramatize her warning Monday of economic losses if Mexican trucks are kept off U.S. roads... Peters is fighting in court against a law that sought to end a pilot project allowing Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. roads... The North American Free Trade Agreement gave Mexican trucks the access beginning in 1995. But the U.S. only opened the roads to a few trucks when the pilot program began last September... The latest numbers from the Department of Transportation show 18 Mexican carriers with 62 trucks and six U.S. carriers with 46 trucks are participating in the program. Up to 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers can participate... Mexican trucks have made 322 crossing into the U.S. interior and U.S. trucking companies have made 683 crossings into Mexico... James Hoffa, International Brotherhood of Teamsters president, said he doesn't buy Peters' argument that Mexico will sanction U.S. goods with higher tariffs in retaliation. Mexico has a $70 billion trade surplus because of NAFTA and "they'd be foolish to do it," Hoffa said... Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Mexico is keeping its options open... (Photo by Susan Walsh/AP: Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, right, speaks during a news conference at the Transportation Department in Washington, Monday, March 10, 2008, on the economic impact of stopping cross border trucking as John Engler of the National Association of Manufacturers looks on at left)


* Transportation Secretary Reverts to Economic Fear Mongering on Cross-Border Trucking

Grain Valley, MO,USA -Layover -10 Marc 2008: -- U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters stood alongside business interests and attempted to use economic threats to scare lawmakers into supporting a pilot program to allow Mexico-based trucking companies and truck drivers to operate on highways throughout the United States... "It's a sad attempt at economic fear mongering," said OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer. "Despite their lip service, they well know that the pilot program is outside of the law"... "The program is supposed to work both ways across the border, and yet there are very few signing up on either side," said Spencer. "Big businesses want the cheap labor, but for a number of reasons trucking companies on both sides of the border don't want to get involved"...


* $2 Billion at Stake for U.S. Ag in Trucking Dispute
Washington,DC,USA -Farm Bureau News -March 10, 2008 – American agriculture could lose up to $2 billion per year if the U.S. does not meet its commitments to Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, said American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman. Speaking today at a press conference with Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, Stallman said if Congress halts or impedes the Transportation Department’s Cross Border Trucking Pilot Program, Mexico’s retaliation could be devastating to U.S. agriculture... Mexico brought a NAFTA case against the United States which found that the United States is not in compliance with their obligations on this issue under the agreement. This case gives Mexico the authority to retaliate if efforts are not taken by the U.S. to comply... (Photo: AFBF President Bob Stallman speaks about the impact on agriculture if the U.S. does not implement its NAFTA commitment to allow Mexican trucks to transport international cargo inside the United States. To Stallman's right is Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. To Peters' right is John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers and former governor of Michigan. The rest of the group are representatives of agricultural associations)


* US Officials Battle Over Mexican Trucks
Washington,DC,USA -Associated Press/Forbes, by SUZANNE GAMBOA -10 March 2008: -- A senator wants Congress' investigative arm to determine whether the Transportation Department has broken the law by spending federal money on a program allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. roads... Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called for the investigation by the General Accountability Office a few hours after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters warned of economic losses if Mexican trucks are prohibited from driving deep into the U.S... Peters has been fighting in court to prevent the program's end. But Dorgan and others say Congress prohibited spending money on the program last year...


* DISCRIMINATION - WorldNetDaily Barred From Mexican Trucks Press Event

USA -I'm A Pimpin Turtle -10 March 2008: -- The Department of Transportation today barred WND from attending a news conference in which Secretary Mary Peters defended the controversial Bush administration program allowing Mexican trucks to travel freely on U.S. roads... Agency spokesman Duane DeBruyne, who was screening reporters at the security entrance of the federal building at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., said he did not have the authority to allow entry to WND senior staff writer Jerome Corsi, who has reported extensively on the program and attended other news conferences on the subject... DeBruyne telephoned his supervisor, DOT spokeswoman Melissa DeLaney, who declined permission without explanation, requiring WND to leave the premises... In a phone call to the DOT public affairs office, the agency explained it was requiring "press credentials" for admittance, and no one without them was allowed to participate... The news conference was only for "credentialed members of the media," spokesman Bill Moseley told WND. "There's a specific credential. He did not have a media credential."... And how can a reporter obtain such a credential providing permission to attend?... "I don't know," Moseley responded... But Corsi said he was never asked to produce media credentials of any kind, noting he had a press ID card issued by WND. DeBruyne, Corsi said, immediately recognized him and apologetically explained the department would "not accept your press credentials." As WND previously reported, a constitutional crisis is developing over DOT's decision to continue the Mexican demonstration project in defiance of a vote by the House and Senate that removed funding for the effort. That vote was in the Consolidated Appropriations Act signed by President Bush Dec. 26...