Sens. Murray, Feinstein look to halt DOT border program

Sens. Murray, Feinstein look to halt DOT border program The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed an amendment offered by Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Diane Feinstein of California to put the brakes on the Department of Transportation’s trial program to open the border to a limited number of Mexican trucks and make direct deliveries to customers.
   The amendment was to a supplemental Iraq war-spending bill that the committee approved Thursday, which would provide money to help implement provisions of last year’s SAFE Port Act and the 9/11 homeland security bill that recently passed the Senate
   The DOT announced last month it would soon start a pilot program with 100 Mexican trucking companies to operate 1,000 trucks beyond the 20-mile corridor currently in place in which shuttle trucks move and drop their loads for transfer to U.S. truckers.
   The amendment requires the DOT to go through a public comment period before starting the one-year evaluation effort, and fully explain how it intends to implement safety inspections, driver hours-of-service, drug testing and other steps to ensure compliance with U.S. highway safety standards. The Bush administration intends to start the program by the end of April without any comment period. The legislation would also prohibit Mexican trucks from gaining access to U.S. highways until U.S. truckers receive reciprocal access to Mexico. Under the DOT plan, U.S. carriers would gain similar access to the Mexican interior six months into the program.