May 11, 2010

Cross-border trucking restart coming soon?

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood Thursday told a Senate subcommittee on May 6, that an announcement of a new cross-border trucking program is in the works.

“President Obama’s team has worked very hard to put a program together,” LaHood said following a question from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development about the ongoing dispute between the United States and Mexico. “We will be announcing it very soon.”

It fact, Lahood added that the Obama administration was “closer than soon” on unveiling the new program.

This isn’t the first time LaHood has predicted an announcement was eminent. Two months ago, he said such a plan was “very near.”

But it’s not likely any plan will be embraced warmly by Congress. In April, 78 congressional leaders signed a letter that was send to LaHood asking and U.S. Trade Representative Ronald Kirk asking they renegotiate the section of the North American Free Trade Agreement that deals with allowing Mexican trucks to have access to U.S. highways.

Last year, Congress cut off funding to a cross-border trucking pilot program implemented by the Bush administration.