U.S. Working on Border Plan, Despite Swine Flu Concerns

This story appears in the May 4 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Obama administration is continuing to work on a plan to restart cross-border trucking between the United States and Mexico, even as the two countries battle the spread of “swine flu.”

Some U.S. trucking operations doing significant business in Mexico said last week that their businesses had not yet been af-fected by the influenza outbreak, and that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the administration was dealing separately with the flu and the cross-border trucking issue.

“At this point, there is no relationship, there’s no connection,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters April 29. “The truck program is different than the swine flu problem.”

Since Mexico announced nearly $2.4 billion in tariffs on U.S. products after the U.S. shut down deliveries by Mexican trucks, the administration has been working to resolve the trade dispute by putting together a revamped cross-border trucking program.

Earlier this month, the Department of Transportation sent its proposal to the White House for review, but those plans have yet to be presented to Congress.

LaHood told reporters on April 28 that he would soon “be getting a schedule together to present our ideas to Congress.”

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chair-man of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told Transport Topics April 24 that he had yet to be briefed about any plans to open the border to trucks.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), a strong critic of cross-border trucking and chairman of the House panel on highways and transit, wrote Obama April 22, urging the administration to challenge Mexico’s tariffs.

Efforts to block the border opening by the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association were dealt a setback late last month as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed a legal challenge they had made in an effort to get a ruling on whether U.S. regulators can accept Mexican trucking rules as equal to their own.

On April 22, Mexican Undersecretary for Foreign Commerce Beatriz Leycegui told Bloomberg News that the administration would present its plans to Mexican officials and the U.S. Congress in a matter of days.

Meanwhile, LaHood said the schedule for releasing a proposal for a new truck program was not going to be affected by the flu, but added that “everyone’s focusing on the flu . . . and it is obviously taking a lot of time and attention.”

Rod Nofziger, director of government affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the flu outbreak comes at “an inopportune time for supporters of the program.”

The outbreak of the flu strain, which is thought to have killed nearly 150 people in Mexico and one in the United States, has yet to affect trucking, several fleets said.

Con-way Inc. spokesman Gary Frantz said operations of both the truckload unit and its Menlo Worldwide Logistics business in Mexico are continuing normally without any disruption and that no workers in Mexico have shown any flu symptoms or become ill. Masks have been issued to workers there, he said.

However, he said the company’s truckload unit temporarily suspended travel for sales executives who had planned to go to Mexico from the United States.

About 30% of Con-way’s truckload business crosses the U.S.-Mexico border.

Con-way uses a transfer agent to move trailers across the border in both directions. U.S. and Mexican drivers who make the long-distance moves never cross the border, he noted.

“It’s business as usual for now,” Celadon Group Inc. spokesman Craig Koven told TT on April 28. “There has been no impact. We are keeping in touch with our offices in Mexico. We are reviewing the situation daily in terms of whatever new information comes out.”

No Mexican workers at Celadon have become ill, he said. Mexico accounts for about one-fourth of Celadon’s trucking business.

Koven said Celadon has contingency plans to cover service disruptions, whether the reason is a natural disaster or an outbreak of illness.

On April 29, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said it was raising its “influenza pandemic alert from Phase 4 to Phase 5.”

Phase 5 is the second-highest level of the global health agency’s scale, and “is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region,” according to the WHO.

President Obama said on April 29 that the flu outbreak, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been diagnosed in 10 states as of press time was “cause for deep concern, but not panic.”

Obama, when asked during a prime-time press conference whether it was time to consider closing the border with Mexico because of the flu, said public health officials “at this point . . . have not recommended a border closing.”

Senior Reporter Rip Watson and wire services contributed to this report.