House Vote Blocks Mexican Trucks Plan
The House voted late Tuesday to block the Bush administration’s planned Mexican trucks program, limiting visiting trucks to the current border-area zone, Bloomberg reported.
The controversial program, announced by the Transportation Department earlier this year, would allow 100 Mexican trucking companies to move cargo into the United States beyond a 25-mile border zone now allowed.
The measure was inserted by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who inserted it into a transportation and housing funding bill, Bloomberg reported.
Congress and public interest groups have cited possible safety concerns in allowing Mexican trucks to travel more widely in the United States.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told Bloomberg there was no set start date planned for the program, which had been scheduled to begin in April.
The Mexican government set regulations for U.S. trucks traveling into that country — a provision demanded by U.S. lawmakers in response to the program — but 114 members of Congress wrote to President Bush earlier this month urging him to suspend the program.
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