Senate Votes to Kill Mexican Truck Demo

Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo
Bush ‘Open Borders’ agenda dealt serious bi-partisan blow
wnd …for complete article
The U.S. Senate has dealt a likely death blow to the Bush administration plans to give Mexican long-haul trucking rigs free access to United States roads and highways.
A bi-partisan majority voted 74-24 tonight to pass an amendment offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to remove funding from the Fiscal Year 2008 Department of Transportation appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation Mexican trucking demonstration project.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., joined Dorgan as a co-sponsor of his amendment.

“Tonight, commerce – for a change – did not trump safety,” Dorgan said in a news release issued after the vote.

Tonight’s vote is a vote for safety,” Dorgan said. “It also represents a turning of the tide on the senseless, headlong rush this country has been engaged in for some time, to dismantle safety standards and a quality of life it took generations to achieve.”
Teamster General President Jim Hoffa praised the Senate for “slamming the door on the Bush administration’s illegal, reckless plan to open our borders to trucks from Mexico.”

“The American people have spoken, and Congress has spoken,” Hoffa said. “Now it’s time for the Bush administration to listen. We don’t want to share our highways with dangerous trucks from Mexico.”

A counter amendment offered by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was submitted in an effort to keep the Mexican truck demonstration project alive, even if on life support.
Cornyn had proposed to allow the demonstration project to go forward, while reserving the right of the Senate to pull the plug if safety problems developed in the initial phases of the program roll-out.
Cornyn’s proposal was killed by a strong bi-partisan 80-18 vote to table his amendment.
Repeatedly, in arguing from the floor of the Senate for his amendment, Cornyn mischaracterized NAFTA as having created a “treaty obligation” requiring the United States to allow Mexican trucks free access to U.S. roads.
Dorgan objected, pointing out that NAFTA was passed in 1993 as a law, not a treaty.
The vote, taken on the evening of the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, represented a strong sentiment in the Senate that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the DOT inspector general had failed to make the case in their eleventh hour reports submitted to Congress late last Thursday that adequate inspection procedures were in place to insure that Mexican trucks would meet U.S. safety standards.
Speaking in favor of Dorgan’s amendment, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the issue really was “free trade” agreements advanced by the Bush administration that advantaged only the multi-national corporations.
Brown compared the safety concerns of allowing Mexican trucks to enter freely into the United States with the safety risks raised by lead paint use by the Chinese on imported toys and Chinese pet and human food that contained poisonous or otherwise toxic elements.

“We need to vote for our children, for our families, for our pets, and for ourselves,” Brown charged, urging in an emotional plea that the Senate pass Dorgan’s amendment.

In May, the House of Representatives passed the Safe American Roads Act of 2007 (H.R. 1773), by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-3 margin.
The majority in the House opposing the DOT Mexican trucking demonstration project makes almost certain that the Dorgan amendment will survive when a conference committee reviews the DOT funding bill that will go to President Bush for his signature.
The trucking program allows up to 100 Mexican carriers to send their trucks on U.S. roadways for delivery and pickup of cargo. None can carry hazardous material or haul cargo between U.S. points.
So far, the Department of Transportation has granted a single Mexican carrier, Transportes Olympic, access to U.S. roads after a more than decade-long dispute over the NAFTA provision opening up the roadways.
One of the carrier’s trucks crossed the border in Laredo, Texas last week and delivered its cargo in North Carolina on Monday and was expected to return to Mexico late this week after a stop in Decatur, Ala.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
It’s a real shame that it took the Democrats to block what never should have been proposed. I’m amazed that Arlen magic bullet Specter cosponsored this bill. He was a big supporter of amnesty. Maybe he heard some angry words from his constituents!
I think the Senate fools know they are under the microscope with their ratings in the toilet. Half of them are traitors to America, no matter what, and the other half have one slippery foot on their proverbial political term-less careers. This is a big win FOR THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. I am not going to drop my guard. It is a very long way to a respectable Senate that can be trusted with the REAL America.
The two aggravating things about this amendment are:
* First, the list of co-sponors, and
* Second, the list of Senators voting NAY or not voting:
S.AMDT.2797
Amends: H.R.3074
Sponsor: Sen Dorgan, Byron L.
COSPONSORS(6):
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] – 9/10/2007
Sen Obama, Barack [IL] – 9/10/2007
Sen Brown, Sherrod [OH] – 9/10/2007
Sen Specter, Arlen [PA] – 9/10/2007
Sen Inouye, Daniel K. [HI] – 9/10/2007
Sen Landrieu, Mary L. [LA] – 9/10/2007
Senators voting NAY:
Allard (R-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Vitter (R-LA)
Not Voting – 2
Craig (R-ID)
McCain (R-AZ)