Teamsters, OOIDA Appeal Court’s Mexican Trucks Decision

The Teamsters union and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have asked a federal court to reconsider its April decision that upheld the government’s cross-border Mexican trucking plan, saying the decision conflicts with the law.

Both appeals, filed Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, ask the court to either assign a three-judge panel to hear the cases against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration again or to allow all eight judges in the court to hear them.

FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne declined to comment on the appeals.

The circuit court treated the two groups’ cases separately, though it heard them on the same day in December and decided both at the same time in April, backing the U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking plan.

The Teamsters’ appeal specifically challenges the court’s decision that Mexican trucks are not imported to the United States and therefore are not subject to the environmental regulations for imported trucks. OOIDA said the April decision effectively repealed previous law, something the court is not empowered to do.

“Our members who drive for a living should not have to put their lives at risk because dangerous trucks are allowed free use of our roads,” Teamsters General President James Hoffa said in a statement announcing the appeal. “Nothing in the court’s decision says Mexican trucks will be safe.”

“Truckers here face ever-increasing restrictions in the name of safety, while no such expectations are in place in Mexico,” Todd Spencer, OOIDA’s executive vice president, said in a June 5 statement from that group. “To allow access puts jobs at risk and endangers our highways.”

For more coverage, see the June 10 print edition of Transport Topics.