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OOIDA president asks Obama to suspend any immediate plans for another Mexico truck pilot project

GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. — The president of the nation’s largest independent trucking association has asked President Barack Obama to suspend any immediate plans to establish another cross border trucking program.

“That is, at least until the Mexican government and your administration are able to irrefutably ensure that Mexico-domiciled motor carriers, their trucks and their drivers are strictly compliant with U.S. safety, security and environmental standards,” Jim Johnston, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association wrote the president in a letter dated March 26. “Although we admire the administration’s integrity and intent to follow through with our nation’s obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement, those intentions should not be placed ahead of the wellbeing of U.S. citizens.”

A copy of the letter was sent to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

Johnston also took issue with what he called claims by the Mexican government and U.S. shipping interests that contend that the cross border trucking pilot program was necessary to comply with the United States’ commitments under NAFTA.

He called those contentions erroneous.

“The treaty provides that each party to the agreement has the right to ‘adopt, maintain or apply any standards-related measure, including any such measure relating to safety, the protection of human, animal or plant life or health, the environment of consumers, and any measure to endure its enforcement or implementation,’” Johnston said in his letter.

Johnston noted that for over three decades, OOIDA had worked with Congress, the DOT, other federal and state agencies and many industry organizations to improve the safety, security and environmental sustainability of the trucking industry in the U.S.

“Great strides have been made in many areas with the potential for even more gains just over the horizon,” Johnston said in his letter. “OOIDA is very concerned that the lack of similar safety, security or environmental regulations and compatible and reciprocal enforcement systems in Mexico will result in a significant loss of the hard-won gains that have been made.”

To read the full letter, click here .

Obama has tasked the DOT to work the U.S. Trade Representative and the State Department  along with leaders in Congress and Mexican officials, to propose legislation creating a new trucking project.

The current project ended when Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-.N.D., inserted language in the recently-signed omnibus appropriations bill to stop the pilot program.

The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at [email protected] .