James Oberstar: “The Sabo-Ney amendment, bipartisan amendment, is in conformity with the February 6 ruling of the NAFTA arbitration panel…”

“The Sabo-Ney amendment, bipartisan amendment, is in conformity with the February 6 ruling of the NAFTA arbitration panel on cross-border trucking services. The panel found that "inadequacies of the Mexican regulatory system provide an insufficient legal basis" to maintain a blanket moratorium on cross-border trucking. But it made it very clear that the United States could treat applications from Mexican trucking firms in a manner different from U.S. firms as long as they are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. That is what this issue is about. We do not inspect all these trucks coming in from Mexico. Less than 1 percent of all northbound crossings at the Mexican border were subject to inspection last year. One-third of the Mexican-domiciled trucks were found unsafe, so unsafe inspectors removed the trucks or removed the drivers from service, a 50 percent higher out-of-service ratio than we have in the United States. Obvious reason, there are no permanent truck inspection facilities at 25 of 27 southern border crossings that account for 3½ million northbound trucks every year.”