U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

34–787 PDF 2007

U.S./MEXICAN TRUCKING: SAFETY

AND THE CROSS-BORDER DEMONSTRATION PROJECT

(110–16)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 13, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

(

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, 

California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

NICK LAMPSON, Texas 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JOHN R. ‘RANDY’ KUHL, JR., New York 

LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

(II)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

JUANITA MILLENDER-MCDONALD, 

California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

MICHAEL A ARCURI, New York 

CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BOB FILNER, California 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota 

(Ex Officio) 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington 

CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, JR., Louisiana 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

(Ex Officio) 

(III)

(V)

CONTENTS Page

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi

TESTIMONY 

Gillan, Jacqueline S., Vice President Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety . 45

Hill, Hon. John H., Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Administration, 

accompanied by Jeffrey N. Shane, Under Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Transportation ........................................................................................ 4

Hoffa, James P., General President International Brotherhood of Teamsters ... 45

Rogers, Major Mark, State Commercial Vehicle Safety Coordinator, Texas 

Department of Public Safety ............................................................................... 45

Scovel, Hon. Calvin L., III, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation ..................................................................................................................... 4

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania .................................................................... 59

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., of Maryland ............................................................... 60

Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas .................................................................. 294

Lipinski, Hon. Daniel W., of Illinois ...................................................................... 299

Mica, Hon. John L., of Florida ................................................................................ 300

Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona ....................................................................... 308

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Gillan, Jacqueline S. ................................................................................................ 65

Hill, Hon. John H. ................................................................................................... 264

Hoffa, James P. ........................................................................................................ 271

Rogers, Major Mark ................................................................................................. 314

Scovel, Hon. Calvin L., III ...................................................................................... 316

Shane, Hon. Jeffrey N. ............................................................................................ 264

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

DeFazio, Hon. Peter A., A Representative in Congress for Oregon, Letter, 

Herbert J. Schmidt, President and CEO, Contract Freighters Inc., March 

9, 2007 ................................................................................................................... 19

Gillan, Jacqueline S., Vice President Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety: 

U.S. Department of Transportation handout, March 2007 .............................. 89

Transcript from the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on the nomination of Mary Peters to be Secretary of 

the Department of Transportation, September 20, 2006 .............................. 91

List prepared by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety on the Federal 

Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s legislated rulemaking actions and 

studies, and additional agency actions ........................................................... 156

Report from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety: The Federal Motor 

Carrier Safety Administration: A Failed Agency ........................................... 182

vi


34787.001
vii


34787.002
viii


34787.003
ix


34787.004
x


34787.005
xi


34787.006
xii


34787.007
(1)

U.S./MEXICAN TRUCKING: SAFETY AND THE 

CROSS-BORDER DEMONSTRATION PROJECT 

Tuesday, March 13, 2007, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:00 p.m., in Room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Peter DeFazio 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. The Subcommittee will come to order. 

First off, I understand that we will be joined by Representative 

Eddie Bernice Johnson, who is not a member of the Subcommittee. 

But I would ask unanimous consent she be allowed to sit with the 

Committee. Hearing no objection, that will be allowed on a timely 

basis. 

Today’s hearing of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit 

is to examine the issue of a pilot program to allow 100 Mexican 

trucking companies free access to the entire continental United 

States. I have a number of grave and ongoing concerns about this 

program that hopefully will be in part addressed today. Then again 

in part, they may not, and it may require further action by this 

Committee. 

After having a meeting yesterday pertaining to this hearing, just 

out of idle curiosity I went online to Google and I Googled the word 

‘‘mordedura,’’ which means the bite, which means essentially 

bribes. And as someone who has long been a student of Mexico and 

speaks very little and very bad Spanish, but understands a good 

deal about the country, they do not have the same system and respect for laws as we do, they have different traditions. In that 

country, it is rampant and widespread among minor and not so 

minor government officials that bribery is a way of doing business. 

I have concerns that if we are accepting a paper program, a 

paper program that certifies drug and alcohol testing, a paper program that certifies the hours of service, that we are accepting their 

commercial driver’s licenses, that if we are basing it on a government-to-government negotiation, with the understanding that they 

have the same sort of enforcement of laws down to those levels in 

the bureaucracy, I think we are sadly mistaken. So that leads me 

to believing that we need to have some additional levels of trust. 

And trust would come through a rigorous pilot program. The program is already skewed by cherry-picking the Mexican trucking 

companies. 

2

But we want to know that even though we are cherry-picking 

and even though hopefully they will have their best drivers and 

trucks online, that we are checking to see that they are indeed 

truly conforming. I would hope that testimony is delivered today 

that relieves some of my anxiety in those areas. 

Then beyond that, quite truthfully, I have an interesting advisory from the State Department, there is some concern expressed 

on the Senate side that Mexico isn’t immediately giving reciprocity 

to American trucking companies which is of course fairly extraordinary. But secondly, American trucking companies don’t want to 

drive in Mexico, again, the problem of lack of laws and enforcement 

of laws. There is an advisory from the State Department saying 

commercial trucks from the U.S. should stay out of Mexico, you are 

likely to be hijacked or otherwise shanghaied down there. 

So this just sort of reinforces my view, which goes to some of 

these other regulatory regimes that we are adopting. But ultimately what I see really is the agenda here, and I must disclose 

I voted against NAFTA, is that this is a way to displace American 

labor. Yet once again, with marginal if any benefit to American 

consumers, by some minuscule reduction in the price of cheap 

goods that were manufactured in China or Mexico and then imported into the United States to a middle class that doesn’t exist 

any more. 

Having a well-paid, well-trained, well-regulated trucking industry and truck drivers benefits our society as a whole. And what I 

see as the grand vision here is that we will develop ports in Mexico, the junk will be made in China, shipped there, we can avoid 

the longshoreman’s union and not pay a living wage to people unloading the ships. Then we can load it onto trucks that will drive 

it from there into the United States with workers who are again 

not paid a living wage and may have a host of other problems inherent in that. 

So that is sort of the longer term vision to be realized here. I am 

not inclined to support this in any way, but I am going to be particularly rigorous in looking at protecting public health and safety, 

because I am not going to sacrifice public health and safety for a 

non-existent economic benefit. 

With that, I would recognize the Ranking Member. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing 

today to listen to testimony on the Department of Transportation’s 

new cross-border demonstration project. The safety of trucks coming into the U.S. across the Mexican border has been of concern 

and it is one that has been of concern to this Committee for quite 

a few years. Since the opening of the border to truck traffic appears 

eminent, it is very important for this Committee to stay engaged 

and ensure that the border opening is handled properly with the 

safety of American motorists as our top priority. 

At the time NAFTA was passed, a sizeable majority of people in 

my district were in favor of it. I feel certain that if NAFTA was 

up today, a sizeable majority would be opposed to it. I am concerned that treaties like NAFTA essentially want to do away with 

our borders and with Mexico and Canada and merge us into a 

North American Union. I am greatly opposed to this and want to 

protect U.S. political and economic sovereignty. 

3

Although I do have concerns about NAFTA, it is the law. It is 

important that the U.S. follow international law, especially laws we 

have entered into willingly. But compliance with NAFTA does not 

necessarily mean we open the border without any scrutiny of the 

process. 

This Committee should actively review DOT’s plan to open the 

border and should revisit the demonstration plan once it has been 

initiated to evaluate its effectiveness. It is imperative that Mexican 

trucks and truck drivers be as safe as U.S. trucks and drivers. And 

safety is really the only thing that this Subcommittee can fairly 

look at, although I do have concerns like the Chairman about 

American jobs. 

It is of concern to me, that as I understand it, there’s about 160 

or so Mexican trucking companies who are already interested in 

this, but only, I understand, two American trucking companies 

wanting to go the other way. It seems to me if we are going to do 

something like this, it needs to be done in a fair way, I would say 

a tit for tat way. And we should let one Mexican trucking company 

in for every American trucking company that wants to go and gets 

permission to go into Mexico. 

I know, too, that there legitimate safety concerns. I have had 

complaints over the years about Mexican drivers, uninsured drivers 

who have hit and seriously injured constituent of mine. My home 

State of Tennessee recently put in a requirement that while not requiring people to be necessarily fluent in English, they have included a test to make sure that drivers can at least read the road 

signs. So we need to think about things like that as well. 

But I thank you very much for calling this hearing. It is important that we look into this from every aspect that we are allowed 

to do. Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for his statement. Are there 

other opening statements? 

Yes, Mr. Holden. 

Mr. HOLDEN. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to thank you 

for conducting this hearing today. I look forward with interest to 

hearing from our witnesses. 

A few years ago, when Mr. Petri was chairman of this Subcommittee, I traveled with him and a few other members to San 

Diego and to Laredo and was just absolutely shocked at the failure 

rate of the truck drivers and the trucks coming into the Country 

with lack of insurance, lack of conformation of registration. And in 

the maintenance failures of the brake systems and numerous other 

aspects of the vehicle. 

So it was an absolute failure when I was on the ground looking 

at it a few years ago, and I am just curious if there has been any 

progress made since then. So Mr. Chairman, thank you for conducting this hearing. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for his succinct statement. 

Mr. Coble? 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Duncan. I appreciate 

your calling this hearing. I will say very briefly, Mr. Chairman, 

this hearing has generated much interest in my district. I have received several telephone calls expressing concern about this. I appreciate your having called the hearing. 

4

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Coble. Mrs. Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Ditto on all the remarks, Mr. Chairman. California has always had a longstanding issue with allowing trucks 

into our area. I look forward to clarification of a lot of the issues 

at this hearing. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady for her extraordinarily succinct statement. I see no other opening statements. We can proceed 

with the witnesses. 

I believe either Mr. Hill or Mr. Shane or are both going to testify? Mr. Hill, okay, and you are doing backup today, is that it? 

Mr. SHANE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Mr. Hill. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN H. HILL, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY: JEFFREY N. SHANE, UNDER SECRETARY 

FOR POLICY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; THE HONORABLE CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DeFazio, Ranking Member Duncan and members of 

the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me today to discuss the 

Department of Transportation’s demonstration project to implement the trucking provisions of the North American Free Trade 

Agreement, NAFTA. I am pleased to describe to you what the Department has done to implement Section 350 of the fiscal year 2002 

Appropriations Act and the additional steps we have taken to ensure that we safeguard the safety and the security of our transportation to work even as we strengthen trade with a close neighbor 

and important trading partner. 

As Secretary Peters announced on February 23rd, the U.S. and 

Mexican governments have agreed to implement a limited, oneyear demonstration project to authorize up to 100 Mexican trucking 

companies to perform long-haul international operations within the 

U.S. and 100 U.S. companies to do the same in Mexico for the first 

time ever. These companies will be limited to transporting international freight and will not be authorized to make domestic deliveries between U.S. cities. It is also important to note in the demonstration project there will be no trucks authorized to transport 

hazardous materials, no bus transportation of passengers, and no 

authority to operate longer combination vehicle on U.S. highways. 

The program will meet, and in some cases exceed, the safety requirements that Congress included in Section 350. For example, 

Section 350 requires the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to perform 50 percent of all pre-authority safety authority audits of Mexican trucking companies at the company’s headquarters 

in Mexico. In fact, for the duration of this program, FMCSA will 

perform 100 percent of these audits on site. That means the U.S. 

inspectors will have eyes on and hands on access to all of a company’s records, equipment, and personnel as we are determining 

whether that company has the systems in place to meet Section 

350 requirements. 

5

And the members of this Subcommittee know that Section 350 

includes a very comprehensive set of requirements to ensure that 

long haul Mexican trucks and drivers operate safely in the U.S. For 

example, Section 350 requires all Mexican drivers to have a valid 

commercial driver’s license, proof of medical fitness, and 

verification of compliance with hours of service. They must be able 

to understand and respond in English to questions and directions 

from U.S. inspectors must undergo drug and alcohol testing, and 

cannot be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. 

All trucks must be insured by a U.S.-licensed insurance company 

and must undergo a 37 point safety inspection at least once every 

90 days. Section 350 also requires all long haul Mexican trucks to 

have a distinct DOT number, so that they will be easy to identify 

by Customs and Border Protection officers, FMCSA, State inspectors and more than 500,000 State and local law enforcement officials. We are working closely with our partners in the States to ensure they understand the parameters of the program and are able 

to enforce the law effectively. 

Finally, in addition to the Federal Motor Carrier safety requirements, the Mexican trucks operating in the demonstration project 

will be required to adhere to the same State requirements as U.S. 

trucks, including size and weight requirements, and pay the applicable fuel taxes and registration fees. It is also important for us to 

bear in mind that trucks from Mexico have always been allowed to 

cross our southern border. Every day drivers from Mexico operate 

safely on roads and major U.S. cities like San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville. Every day, Federal and State inspectors ensure trucks are safe to travel on our roads. And our records show 

that Mexican trucks currently operating in the commercial zone are 

as safe as the trucks operated by companies here in the United 

States. 

We have developed this limited program to demonstrate to you, 

the Congress, and to the traveling public that we will be able to 

implement Section 350 successfully to allow Mexican trucks to operate safely beyond the commercial zone. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to working with 

you to create new opportunities, new hope, and new jobs north and 

south of the border, while continuing to ensure the safety of North 

American roads. Under Secretary Shane and I would be happy to 

answer your questions. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you for your testimony. 

With that, we would turn to the Inspector General, Mr. Scovel. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Duncan and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify 

today as you evaluate the safety of cross-border trucking with Mexico under the provisions of NAFTA. We appreciate the Committee’s 

interest in the demonstration program that will expand the reach 

of Mexican cross-border trucking. 

Our role, as established in the fiscal year 2002 Transportation 

Appropriations Act, is to review eight specific criteria and provide 

the results to the Secretary. We will continue to work with the Department as the demonstration program progresses, consistent 

with our responsibility to preserve our independence and objectivity as we conduct our annual audits under the fiscal year 2002 

6

Act and as we respond to your requests that we audit the demonstration program. 

We have issued seven reports on border safety since 1998 and 

will issue an eighth report shortly. Today I would like to address 

four key issues concerning cross-border trucking with Mexico. First, 

we have seen significant progress in border safety in recent years. 

We have visited 27 large and small border crossings, some multiple 

times, and found that FMCSA had in place the staff, facilities, 

equipment and procedures necessary to substantially meet the criteria set forth in the Act. 

For example, the number of Federal Motor Carrier enforcement 

personnel, including inspectors, has jumped almost 20-fold since 

1998, from 13 to 254. In addition, the number of Mexican trucks 

taken out of service after inspection declined by about half, from 

44 percent to 20 percent, a rate comparable to that of American 

trucks. Further, all States can now take enforcement action when 

necessary against Mexican trucking companies, a significant improvement over 2003, when only two States had this capability. 

Second, we have concerns about the completeness of the data in 

the so-called 52nd State system. This is a data repository set up 

by FMCSA for traffic convictions of Mexican commercial drivers 

while operating in the United States, and is needed to allow U.S. 

officials to bar Mexican drivers from operating here for the same 

offenses that would bar U.S. drivers. We have found reporting 

problems and other inconsistences with this system at the four border States. 

In one example, data reported by Texas showed a steep decline 

in traffic convictions between January and May 2006. When we 

brought this to FMCSA’s attention, it turned out that Texas had 

stopped reporting this data. After developing an action plan with 

FMCSA, Texas subsequently eliminated a backlog of some 40,000 

Mexican commercial traffic convictions. 

To its credit, FMCSA has acted quickly to work with the States 

to correct these issues. Strong follow-up action or interim solutions 

will be required, however, especially as Mexican carriers begin to 

operate more extensively beyond the border States. 

Third, we have two observations regarding FMCSA’s demonstration program expanding cross-border trucking with Mexico based 

on our past and current work. One, FMCSA will need to ensure 

that it has an effective screening mechanisms at border crossings. 

Hundreds of trucks enter the Country from Mexico each day at 

large volume crossings. While the law requires 50 percent of Mexican driver’s licenses to be checked, FMCSA has announced a standard of every truck, every time. This will not always be easy. A driver must first be identified, in this case by an X, appearing after the 

DOT number that is present on the side of all interstate trucks. In 

instances that we have observed, the driver is then taken out of 

line for a license check by FMCSA staff. This process could be 

streamlined if FMCSA enforcement personnel work collaboratively 

with the Customs and Border Protection Service. 

Two, FMCSA will need clear objectives and measures of success. 

In order to assess performance and risk, the agency must have 

meaningful criteria, especially if it wants to consider opening the 

border to greater numbers of carriers in the future. To date, we 

7

have seen no details on how the program’s success will be evaluated. 

In summary, Mr. Chairman based on our work over the past 

eight years, we see continual improvement in the border safety program along with a willingness by the parties involved to solve problems once identified. Some areas need and are receiving the proper 

attention. We will continue to audit the cross-border trucking program, report on its progress and address the specific concerns of 

this Committee. 

This completes, my statement. I would be happy to answer any 

questions that you or other members of the Committee may have 

at this time. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. Thanks for your report and your testimony. 

I will begin the questions with Mr. Hill. I guess my first question 

is quite broad, but you’re referring to this as a pilot program. It 

has to do with safety of motor carriers, commercial motor vehicles, 

driver safety. My reading, and I am not a lawyer, but by my reading of the law this seems to have been anticipated in the Transportation Act for the 21st Century, TEA-21. It sets out requirements 

to follow if you are conducting a pilot. 

How is it that the Administration feels they are exempt from this 

law? Because this so-called pilot does not meet those guidelines. It 

is our understanding nothing has been published in the Federal 

Register, no public comment except on individual carriers from 

Mexico, has been solicited. It is not a three year program. There 

is a whole long list of failings regarding pilot programs. Do you 

have legal counsel, have they informed you that you are exempt 

from this law? 

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, we have addressed that with legal 

counsel. If you are referring to Section 4007 of TEA-21, the language that is given there specifies how we are to conduct a pilot 

program when it give relief from or alternatives to the safety regulations. In this particular instance, there is no attempt to deviate 

from our current regulations. There is no———

Mr. DEFAZIO. Where is the language? I have the law. Where is 

the language relating to innovative approaches to motor carriers, 

commercial motor vehicle and driver safety may include, may include exemptions from a regulation prescribed under this chapter 

as—et cetera. I don’t see that language that you are quoting from 

legal counsel in the statute. Is this inferred or are you actually 

quoting statutory language? 

Mr. HILL. I believe that there is a reference there to having to 

give relief from or alternatives to the existing safety regulations. 

We are not giving any relief here or any alternatives. We require 

them to qualify. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I beg to differ. It is certainly an alternative. We 

are having a foreign government basically assess whether or not 

their truck drivers are meeting U.S. requirements for public health 

and safety relating to drug testing, hours of service, vehicle safety, 

driver licensing. How can you argue that that isn’t———

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, we are going to be handling them just 

like we do Canadian carriers in our ongoing safety regimen now. 

We are verifying that they are in compliance with U.S. regulations, 

8

not in compliance with Mexican regulations. We are verifying that 

they comply with U.S. law. And so our———

Mr. DEFAZIO. We will follow up on that issue regarding your 

statutory authority. Let’s go to the program itself. 

The allegation is this is a ‘‘pilot,’’ i.e., we are going to demonstrate something. And it is not a permanent and full opening of 

the board of the United States. Yet I do have a copy of the initial 

agreement, and I believe Mr. Shane participated in this process. It 

sets out three things. First stage, six months, we let the Mexicans 

in. Second stage, six months, U.S. companies that want to have 

their trucks hijacked will be allowed to go into Mexico. 

Third stage, we get at the end of the 12 month period, in which 

a full and permanent opening of the border is foreseen, and new 

carrier operations being appropriated normal operating authority 

procedures of each country. Have we already reached the conclusion that that at the end of 12 months we are opening the border? 

It says foreseen. To me that is, it is not like there will be an evaluation that will take a certain period of time, there will be a report 

to Congress, whatever. It is foreseen that we will fully open our 

border. 

Mr. SHANE. Mr. Chairman, may I answer that question? Because 

as you pointed out, I was privy to those conversations. Number 

one, that document is a record of consultations, it is emphatically 

not an agreement. We did not establish any international obligations beyond those established in NAFTA. The objective of that document was simply to write down the mechanics of what the two 

countries contemplated we would do in the demonstration program. 

The third element of it, as you have suggested, is the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Mexico in trucking. It was 

an aspiration that we included in the record of consultations. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But here is the question. What is going to 

happen at the end of 12 months? We have had exchanges before, 

and I do enjoy it. But we don’t have a tremendous amount of time 

and I want to accommodate other members. As I said before, you 

should work for the State Department, I think you would be a 

great diplomat. But let’s get to the bottom line. What happens at 

the end of 12 months? Are we going to put into abeyance the existing rights of the 100 companies. Since it is on a rolling 18 month 

basis, it sounds unlikely, it sounds like we are already extending 

people beyond the 12 months. Is there going to be a suspension of 

further approvals while there is some sort of real, deliberative, 

evaluative process. 

What is going to happen at the end of 12 months? This says it 

foresees full border opening. What is the U.S. position? What mechanics, what will happen at the end of 12 months, plain and simple. I’m a simple guy. So what are we going to do at the end of 

12 months? 

Mr. SHANE. We will conduct an evaluation in concert with both 

the Inspector General and a panel of experts that the Secretary of 

Transportation will commission for the purpose of delivering objective advice to us about how the program has in fact———

Mr. DEFAZIO. Objective advice. These will be people named by 

the Secretary, who has implemented, authored the program, which 

hasn’t been publicly noticed or comment on. And she’s going to 

9

really objectively choose objective people who are going to really objectively evaluate what really happened. 

Mr. SHANE. Precisely———

Mr. DEFAZIO. And there is going to be further consultation with 

the Congress on this? 

Mr. SHANE. I am sure there will be consultation with Congress, 

not just at the end, but the Secretary has herself promised that the 

Congress will be informed as the program is unfolding, not merely 

at the end. The members of the panel, I apologize, I am not in a 

position to scoop the Secretary on any announcements about the individuals, but I think when you see the individuals, you will conclude that they are precisely as you have described, that they are 

objective and they are independent and they will provide objective 

advice. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, I hope that is the case. I thank you for that, 

but again, I am concerned that it is essentially a foregone conclusion that you have to get this done before this President leaves office, and you don’t have a lot of time left. So I am very concerned 

that this is a foreordained conclusion. 

Let me go to one specific that I raised with the Administrator 

yesterday and see if he has an answer. I know that the IG might 

have something to say about this. The IG expressed concern about 

their drug testing. Basically, there are no certified labs in Mexico. 

There is no assurance of chain of custody. And there are tremendous concerns, given anecdotal evidence, that it is commonplace, 

absolutely commonplace, that the abused truck drivers of Mexico 

frequently abuse substances to stay awake during very long hauls, 

because there are no hours of service within Mexico, but somehow 

magically we are going to have hours of service when they come 

across our border. They are being abused to the point of driving 

2,500 kilometers, no relief, being told to get there in a certain period of time, and they are using drugs. 

Now, I am very concerned that those same people are going to 

be pushed across the border into the United States. I want to 

know, there are two things. One is, I am not willing to accept that 

somehow this Mexican trucking company down there is taking the 

samples in a secure way from the right people and shipping them 

to the United States to be analyzed. They could have one guy who 

is giving the samples. So that is a concern. 

I want to know, is there going to be a safeguard? Are we going 

to test a certain percentage of these drivers at the border to make 

sure that this drug testing program is real and there are no problems? 

Mr. HILL. Mr. Chairman, we are going to work with the Mexican 

carriers to make sure they comply with drug and alcohol requirements the same as U.S. carriers and Canadian carriers. As I told 

you yesterday, the Canadian carriers do not have drug testing. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. Again, we had this discussion yesterday, 

and I have already gone through the careless disregard for the law 

in Mexico and the fact that these are not things that are commonly 

accepted in Mexico and it is not likely that, being assured—I am 

not assured. Will you require a certain percentage of the people in 

this pilot program, it is a pilot program and we would want to 

10

verify that it is working, to take drug tests at the border, yes or 

no? 

Mr. HILL. During this demonstration project———

Mr. DEFAZIO. Is it yes or no, and then we can get to the number? 

Mr. HILL. All four of the companies that we have audited have 

said that they are going to do their collections in the United States. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. They are going to do their collection———

Mr. HILL. Their drivers are going to have their specimens———

Mr. DEFAZIO. They are going to fly their drivers up here or drive 

them up here? 

Mr. HILL. I don’t care how they are going to do it, but they are 

going to do it in the United States. Secondly———

Mr. DEFAZIO. I still would like to know that we are going to do 

some sort of random testing of these people at the border. Didn’t 

the IG report on the problems with the chain of custody here and 

concerns about the program? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have expressed in testimony previously our concern with specifically the collection process used to produce Mexican specimens for analysis in the United 

States labs. Much attention has been focused on the lab question, 

and it is true, Mexican specimens need to be examined here, because there is no certified lab in Mexico. 

However, based on my long experience with the U.S. military’s 

drug prevention and detection effort, I can say that we have had 

minimal problems with our laboratories. We had, regrettably, more 

extensive problems with the integrity of the collection process, including some ingenious schemes by service members to subvert or 

defeat the collection process. If this Committee were to ask my office to verify that the agreement which the U.S. and Mexican governments entered into in 1998 that calls for drug collection processes in Mexico to be equivalent to those in the United States, it 

would be difficult for my office to produce an opinion unless we 

were allowed into Mexico to examine their process. 

Now, if the current procedure envisions Mexican drivers entering 

this Country and producing samples here, then my office would be 

in a much better position to examine the process and to provide an 

objective opinion back to the Committee. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you. My time has expired. 

Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I begin my questions, I have been asked by Ranking 

Member Mica, who is apparently not going to be able to make it 

here, to request unanimous consent that his statement on this 

issue be placed into the record, and also to ask unanimous consent 

that statements and questions be permitted to be submitted for the 

record from any member. I ask unanimous consent. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Without objection. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

Administrator Hill, I was very impressed by the precautions such 

as insurance and other requirements that you are going to put in 

on these Mexican trucking companies. And I was very impressed 

by Inspector General Scovel’s report. I have heard of a lot of testimony from inspectors general, most of which has been very critical 

of the departments that they are inspecting. But most of what he 

11

said is there had been some great improvements and your agency 

has done some really good work. 

But I was told that there was an associated press article recently 

in which a National Transportation Safety Board member said that 

since only a very tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of 

U.S. truck companies are inspected every year, does your agency 

have the resources and the staff to really inspect all these carriers 

in Mexico and on the border, while maintaining all that you are required to do in regard to the U.S. trucking companies? 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. I would 

just simply say to you a couple of things. First of all, when the Section 350 Appropriations Act was put in place, there was not only 

a very specific set of guidelines given to us to follow, but there was 

also funding that allowed us to hire dedicated resources, human resources, to deal with the requirements of Section 350. 

So we have dedicated personnel that all they do is deal with the 

border issues. For example, the number of inspectors that we have 

along the border is not representative of what we have anywhere 

else in the Country. The vast majority of commercial vehicle safety 

at the roadside is done by our dedicated State and local and law 

enforcement partners. I think you are going to hear from one of 

those members in the second panel. We work with the more than 

13,000 State inspectors that do commercial vehicle inspections all 

throughout this Country. So the people that are dealing with this 

particular issue along the border are dedicated, and that is their 

only job, is to deal with Mexican trucking related matters along the 

border. 

So I would take issue that we are diverting resources. In fact, the 

statute very clearly says that we are forbidden from taking resources from within the agency and dedicating them to this Mexican trucking enforcement protocol. So I believe that we have the 

adequate resources to deal with this. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Let me ask you something else. You 

heard in my statement that there’s just a lot of concern all across 

this Country about the trade imbalance that we have. I was told 

yesterday, as I mentioned, that there are 160 Mexican trucking 

companies that want to come in here under this demonstration 

project and only 2 U.S. carriers have applied for operating authority in Mexico. Are those figures accurate, and if so, are you going 

to do something to try to encourage more U.S. trucking companies? 

And thirdly, is this some sort of real high priority so you are going 

to feel pressure to hurry up and approve all these 100 Mexican 

companies to qualify for this program? 

Mr. HILL. The numbers that you cited, I am aware of the Mexican applications that we have in place, but I am not aware of all 

the U.S. interests. I have heard the number two, I have also heard 

the number six. I don’t think the number is very high. 

We are not going to rush through this inspection process, this 

safety process. One of the reasons why we are starting with 100 

carries is to give us an opportunity to demonstrate to the Congress 

and to ourselves to make sure that we are going to have the safety 

protocols that are adequate in place before we would ever look at 

anything any larger. And there needs to be an evaluation not only 

of what goes on in Mexican carriers but we are also going to be 

12

evaluating whether or not Mexico affords equal treatment to our 

carriers wanting to go south. 

So part of the demonstration project is to make sure that their 

process is transparent, allowing American trucks to apply and to 

receive operating authority and to be allowed to operate in the 

same manner that we allow their trucks to operate in this Country. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I will say once again, I am sure it won’t be 

done this way, but I think we should approve a Mexican company 

for each American company that wants this authority in Mexico. 

Let me ask you this. A little over a year or so ago, I went to a 

very sad funeral in my district for four young people from Crown 

College, a small Christian college in my district, who had been, 

those four young people were on a mission trip to Florida. And they 

were killed in a very horrible wreck by a Mexican truck driver. 

What I would like to know is this: How are we going to be able 

to determine whether these Mexican truck drivers, how are we 

going to know whether they have a safe driving record in Mexico? 

How are we going to know that we are not allowing truck drivers 

in here that, the Chairman mentioned some concerns about the 

drug problems of some of these drivers. The drug problem, that is 

certainly a concern. But also the safe driving record, how do we 

verify this with these Mexican companies? I understand that some 

of these records in Mexico are really not that good. 

Mr. HILL. Congressman, when we look at the commercial driver’s 

license record, our inspectors daily are making CDL checks, commercial driver’s license checks in the commercial zone. We do about 

20,000 of those every month. So we are querying the Mexican 

Licencia Federale data base. It is called LIFIS, and it is an information similar to our own in terms of its electronic capacity. So our 

inspectors are verifying driver history records and we know that 

there are driver disqualifications occurring, because we are finding 

them now in the commercial zone. 

Mr. DUNCAN. So in other words, you think that their records system there is just as good as ours? 

Mr. HILL. I do not know; I have not seen the details of their system. I know that we were required to have a system in place and 

to make sure that we could account for violations for drivers operating in the United States. That piece I am sure about. I am not 

as confident about the Mexican LIFIS system. I do not know the 

details of it. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, I am going to forego any other questions, 

so we can get to other members. Thank you very much. 

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the Ranking Member. 

We will go in the order that people arrived at the Committee. 

Mr. Holden? 

Mr. HOLDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Administrator Hill, I heard what you just said about not being 

able to verify the Mexican system. But I can tell you, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I have visited San Diego and Laredo. Mr. Filner, who just stepped in a moment ago, it is his district, that San Diego crossing. I can tell you that they couldn’t 

check the records in Mexico. They are hooked up to a system in 

Mexico City that basically was a failure. If you count the minor, 

13

major violations plus the situations where they were not able to 

verify one way or the other, it is almost 100 percent of failure at 

that time, just a few short years ago. 

So if we are going to rely on the Mexican system for verification 

and trust them, I don’t believe there is any accuracy for it, unless 

they have come a long way baby in the last few years. So I know 

you might not have anything further to add to what you just said 

to Mr. Duncan’s question, but I don’t have any faith in their system, based on being their first-hand and looking at it. 

That deals with the registration and the licensing and the insurance, maybe personal information on the driver. But I think you 

mentioned this in your opening remarks, how are we going to physically test the vehicles? Is it going to be tested in the U.S. or are 

we going to trust Mexican inspectors for that as well? 

Mr. HILL. Congressman, we are going to do two different regimens for verification of the vehicle safety. When our inspectors, 

FMCSA inspectors, go south into Mexico and do the pre-authority 

safety audit, a pre-authority safety audit is something we are required to do by Section 350 before any kind of operating authority 

is granted to a Mexican carrier. During that pre-authority safety 

audit, we will be inspecting every one of the trucks that is anticipated to be used in this long-haul operation. 

For example, the very first pre-authority safety audit that we 

did, the trucking company had 37 tractors. But he was only going 

to dedicate five of them, and trailers, to the long haul operation. 

So we are recording what vehicles those are, and we are going to 

physically inspect every one of them to make sure they are in compliance with U.S. laws and regulations. Then if they pass, we will 

affix a safety decal which will then indicate to us that the vehicle 

has met safety standards. 

Mr. HOLDEN. You said that the project is going to inspect 50 percent of the traffic, is that the goal? 

Mr. HILL. The law requires us to inspect 50 percent of the traffic, 

but we are going to be inspecting 100 percent of the carriers involved in this demonstration project. 

Mr. HOLDEN. And how many vehicles, how many crossings are 

we talking about? 

Mr. HILL. I’m talking specifically now about the pre-authority 

safety———

Mr. HOLDEN. The authority, okay. 

Mr. HILL. When we go into the—we are going to do 100 of those. 

Then at every one of the border crossings, when those vehicles 

cross into the U.S., we will be looking for that vehicle through a 

specific designator. It has an X designation on the side of the truck. 

Then we are going to be working with DHS to make sure that we 

have access to their information, so that when we know one of 

these carriers is in the queue, we can pull that vehicle out of line 

and make sure it is inspected at the border. 

Mr. HOLDEN. So after pre-approval, the scrutiny will, what level 

of scrutiny will there be, or are we just going to trust that there 

has been no change in the vehicle, no changing of plates, no changing of i.d. numbers? 

14

Mr. HILL. Every vehicle that we see that is a long haul Mexican 

truck, we are going to be making sure they have a safety decal on 

it, which would indicate they have been through an inspection. 

Mr. HOLDEN. I understand. 

Mr. HILL. Then we are going to be looking at the license for that 

particular driver, to make sure that it is in compliance. Now, the 

law requires us to do 50 percent of those. But we are going to be 

checking each one of them at the border, when they enter the 

Country, for this demonstration project. That is the goal. 

Mr. HOLDEN. I understand, Mr. Administrator, and I appreciate 

your testimony. But I am telling you, after being there, I am very, 

very skeptical. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Coble. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to have you all 

with us today. 

Mr. Hill, I am going to ask you a simplified question, and I may 

be amplifying my ignorance in doing it. But what is the primary 

purpose in the cross-border demonstration project? 

Mr. HILL. The primary purpose, sir, is to fulfill our NAFTA obligation, which has been delayed now for several years, and to make 

certain that our processes in place meet the requirements of Section 350 of the Appropriations Act, to ensure that we have safe operation of those vehicles coming into the Country. 

Mr. COBLE. Currently, Canadian trucks travel into the U.S., 

hauling international loads, do they not? 

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir, that is correct. 

Mr. COBLE. How do Canadian trucks and drivers measure up in 

the U.S. safety-wise? 

Mr. HILL. In the year 2005, the typical out of service rate for a 

Canadian vehicle was 13 and a half percent, which was lower than 

what the out of service rate is for the U.S. carriers. I can explain 

out of service rate if you would like me to go into a little more detail. 

Mr. COBLE. If you would. 

Mr. HILL. Okay. Whenever we do this inspection that we have 

been referring to in our testimony and in answer to questions, if 

a violation is found that is so serious that we can’t allow the safety 

to be ensured by moving the vehicle or the driver, it is rendered 

out of service. It can’t move until the driver violation or the vehicle 

violations are fixed. So the rate at which we found those violations 

with Canadian carriers was 13 and a half percent in 2005. 

Mr. COBLE. So as well or better that our trucks and drivers perform, I presume? 

Mr. HILL. Yes. The out of service rate for U.S. vehicles in 2005 

was 21 and a half percent. 

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Hill, what actions will the FMCSA take when 

the pilot programs have been concluded? 

Mr. HILL. As the Under Secretary indicated in his response to 

the Chairman a moment ago, we are going to be evaluating whether or not there are adequately safety protocols in place and being 

followed. In other words, are the requirements in Section 350 working as we anticipated that they are supposed to work, and then we 

15

are going to be making reports on that, as he indicated, to Congress and other places to ensure that we have fulfilled our requirement under the law before we would proceed on it. 

Mr. COBLE. Will U.S. operations in Mexico be evaluated as well? 

Mr. HILL. The purpose of the bi-national monitoring group, I 

don’t know whether you have heard this reference, but there is a 

team of people in Mexico and a team of people in the U.S. that are 

going to be working together to make sure that we remove any 

kinds of impediments or obstacles to allowing this process to go forward. We will be making sure that U.S. carriers going south are 

giving proportionate treatment and we will be evaluating how well 

that is being done. 

Mr. COBLE. And will the Mexican officials respond in a similar 

way? 

Mr. HILL. We have assurance from both the Secretary of SCT, 

the Secretary of Communication and Transport, and their staff, 

that they will work with us on this endeavor, yes. 

Mr. COBLE. I thank you, sir. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentleman. Mrs. Napolitano. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am listening with 

great interest, because I sat on California Transportation Commission at the State level for six years. This had come up then. It really hasn’t changed a whole lot in terms of the questions. Now, 

whether the fixes have been there, I don’t know. But I can go into 

another area, because I have some knowledge of some of our American companies losing loads in Mexico. 

Now, is there anything that will help our drivers, our U.S., if 

they are able to contract going into Mexico to assure their safety 

and the safety of their cargo? Because I can name you one company 

that’s lost billions of dollars in cargo theft in Mexico, coming up to 

deliver to the U.S., it is a major company. There is no help from 

the Mexican side. 

Now, that said, there are other issues that I have and I want to 

ensure that we don’t bypass some of the inherent issues that we 

have. I was born and raised in a border town, I travel to Mexico 

fairly often. I know some of the issues in dealing with the bureaucracy in Mexico in regard to some of the law enforcement, et cetera. 

I have a concern that if we are allowing our folks to go into Mexico, 

will they be as protected, or will they have the ability to be able 

to have recourse to assistance from the Mexican federal government to assist our companies? That is a big issue for my carriers 

and for some of the businesses that I know. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that insight. I will assure you that we are working closely with the Mexican officials and 

SCT. I think what you are also talking about is perhaps another 

area of the Mexican government in terms of protective service and 

so forth that we are going to be having to make sure that we work 

with them as well through this process. 

The Mexican government has committed to us that they want to 

have a proper working relationship of NAFTA on both sides of the 

border. That would imply safety and safe passage, just as we are 

going to be ensuring that on our side of the border. So we are committed to working with them on this issue. 

16

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, I certainly want to talk to you, or send 

you the information so you can look into this one. Because it does 

involve trucking of products sold to the American companies for 

processing by American companies, to be delivered in the U.S. and 

hijacked. The Mexican government has done little to nothing on 

that. 

Mr. HILL. We would be glad to relay that information. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. The other questions that I have have to do 

with, in following up on the questions of my colleague, was on setting up the inspections on the U.S. side of trucks coming in, every 

single one, on this pilot. Do we have enough trained personnel, 

U.S. employees at those stations to be able to carry out those inspections on those trucks? Are you limiting it to certain crossings 

only? How are you setting that up? 

Mr. HILL. Ma’am, one of the points that I want to make sure that 

the Committee understands is that we are going to be verifying at 

the border whether or not the truck has been properly inspected. 

That could imply a safety decal issued by a certified inspector that 

they have already been inspected in the last 90 days, what will be 

verifying at the border. 

But to answer your specific question, back in 1995, we had very 

few staff in place to do this. I think we had a handful of people. 

We now have over 250 FMCSA staff dedicated to border inspection 

and auditing activities. In addition to that, we have over 350 to 400 

State inspectors along the border. That is a large presence to deal 

with a very limited number of Mexican trucks that are coming into 

this Country for long haul operations, 100 carriers and a limited 

number of vehicles. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Do you differentiate in the training between 

long haul and short haul at the border by the training you have 

given these individuals? 

Mr. HILL. We have done that with our staff, and we are working 

with the State and local authorities to do that as well, yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. In regard to the—and I have very little time—

to the ability of States to be able to have higher standards, is that 

preempted by NAFTA? Higher standards for incoming drivers into, 

say, for instance, California, which has higher standards? 

Mr. HILL. The current regime is that when a Mexican carrier or 

driver comes into a State, they must comply with those State requirements. So if there are requirements in place that that State 

has, they are going to be required to fulfill those requirements. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Will they know those laws in Mexico, so they 

can abide by them? Who is going to give them the training to be 

able to recognize what is expected and required of them when they 

come into U.S. territory for any given State? 

Mr. HILL. Part of our process from the FMCSA side is to do some 

of that education on the front end, during this pre-authority safety 

audit. But primarily, we are there to do enforcement. We are making sure that the safety protocols are in place. 

But I think during that time, we could also be answering questions and providing information to them, as you have indicated. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady for her questions. 

17

At this point in the record, I just would insert for the record, 

since she has questions about security, a document from Securitas 

Security Services, USA, which outlines the problems of hijacking, 

50 truckloads from January of this year up to March 7th, and quite 

a number of U.S. truckloads being hijacked and an advisory from 

the State Department. Again, since in part, entering into this 

agreement with Mexico depends on enforcement of the laws. He 

goes on to say, and this is the director of these services, who is 

monitoring what is happening to his companies in Mexico. The 

Mexican government has not become involved yet, because they are 

considered to be outpowered. And these are the people we are going 

to depend upon to enforce the safety and security laws for the 

American public. 

Ms. Fallin. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I appreciate all of you coming today to give us this testimony. It 

is a very important topic. 

I just have a couple of questions, and if I could start with Mr. 

Hill. Being in Oklahoma, we have the NAFTA corridor coming up 

I-35, the middle of our State. I have seen the wear and tear that 

the trucks take on our highway systems. I am just curious, if this 

demonstration project goes through, are there any types of fees 

that the Mexican truck companies will pay to help us with the 

wear and tear on our national transportation system? 

Mr. HILL. Congresswoman, the requirement for Mexican carriers 

coming into the Country specifies that they have to meet State 

laws. One of the State laws that is in place is something called the 

International Fuel Tax Agreement, IFTA, and that is designed to 

collect fuel tax to help pay for the Highway Trust Fund. Those vehicles will be subject to IFTA requirements, they will have to have 

a decal that is affixed to the vehicle for officers to see non-compliance and they will be enforced if they are not following it. 

Ms. FALLIN. Okay, another question. I know this is to open up 

trade and goods between our two countries. Have we had any further economic impact studies that if we have the trucks coming 

through the United States, that will affect our economy and trade? 

Mr. HILL. I am primarily a safety person. But I would just say 

to you that in the course of hearing this discussed, we believe that 

it will eliminate bottlenecks at the border, thereby increasing efficiency and I think the Chairman even referred to that in the opening comments, that there will be some measured relief given to the 

American consumer. So we believe that it will have an impact of 

allowing the free flow of commerce between our countries. 

Ms. FALLIN. Okay. Then one last question for Mr. Scovel. According to the testimony, it says all States have adopted operating authority rules. And the States are prepared to enforce those safety 

standards under this program. Will there be any extra cost to the 

individual States for training and also for making sure the trucks 

are in compliance? 

Mr. SCOVEL. I would like to defer to the Administrator on the 

cost question. My staff has examined the training provided by 

FMCSA to State law enforcement personnel. One of our recommendations has been to ensure that that training is adequate, 

so that the local and State law enforcement authorities know what 

18

they are looking for, and moreover, know the data systems, data 

bases, that they can access in FMCSA, pertaining to the specific 

operating authority of a vehicle. 

Mr. HILL. If I may just add to that in terms of the funding, we 

do have grants in place that we are working with the International 

Association of Chiefs of Police to do training as we speak. We are 

training trainers throughout the Country so that they can then do 

training for their local law enforcement. That is money that was 

provided by the Congress and we are using it to make sure that 

there is adequate training in place. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you very much. We are always concerned 

about unfunded mandates back to our States. 

Mr. HILL. This will not be one. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady. 

At this point in the record, in response to a question she raised 

and a response from Mr. Hill, I would submit a letter from CF, the 

Contract Freighters, Incorporated, Herbert Schmidt, President and 

CEO. He points out that we actually have an extraordinarily viable 

and efficient system already of dealing with freight from Mexico, 

that he has agreements with Mexican trucking companies. His U.S. 

certified, U.S. approved, U.S. drug tested drivers provide and drive 

the trailer to the border area, they drop it, the Mexican company 

picks it up, takes it into Mexico, likewise coming the other way. So 

we don’t deal with this whole issue of the Mexican trucks on the 

U.S. roads. 

So there is already a very efficient way to deal with this. He goes 

on to say that basically no U.S. trucking company in their right 

mind is going to operate in Mexico because of the safety and security problems. So I would submit that, without objection, into the 

record. 

[The information received follows:]

19


34787.008
20


34787.009
21


34787.010
22


34787.011
23


34787.012
24


34787.013
25

Mr. DEFAZIO. Now we will move on to Mr. Braley. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I come to this hearing from a different perspective, having been 

a truck driver back in the days when you needed a chauffeur’s license instead of a CDL. I would like to thank the Ranking Member 

about his poignant story about people from his district who dealt 

with the consequences of trucking accidents that have a very real 

concern to me, in light of the regulations we are talking about here 

today. Because one of the things we know is that having similar 

requirements for insurance on a Mexican trucking company is a 

very different thing than having that same insurance requirement 

on a U.S. trucking company. Because under the current regulations, DOT carriers in the United States are only required to carry 

$750,000 of liability coverage unless they are carrying hazardous 

materials, and then that limit goes up to a million dollars. 

If you are in a bus load of Catholic school kids and you get hit 

by a U.S. carrier, the first line of defense to take care of those 

claims is that insurance policy. The second line of defense is the 

assets of that trucking company located in the United States. The 

problem with this requirement is that if you have a catastrophic 

injury, such as a hazardous release of a Mexican carrier, for example, in Ms. Fallin’s home district, that $1 million policy won’t even 

begin to cover the liability consequences of that injury. Then the 

people in her district are going to be faced with pursing a claim 

against a foreign trucking company that has little or no assets in 

this Country other than the vehicle that was involved in the collision and a very long and arduous process, trying to get jurisdiction 

over that company’s assets, not over the company itself, to make 

those people whole. And if they aren’t made whole, then we as taxpayers pick up the burden. 

So what I would like to know from the three of you is whether 

you feel that applying the same insurance requirement for Mexican 

trucking companies is going to protect the safety of U.S. citizens if 

they are involved in a catastrophic loss involving a Mexican trucking company. 

Mr. HILL. Congressman, thank you for those observations. First 

of all, I would just say to you that we are required to follow U.S. 

law, and right now that is the law of the land. And we do that currently with Canadian carriers that come into the Country. So we 

already have a regimen in place. As far as the hazardous materials 

release, we are not going to have hazardous materials in this demonstration project. So that is one piece of the equation that you explained that we will not have in this demonstration project. 

I will defer to anyone else who might want to address the liability issues. 

Mr. SHANE. I can’t really add very much more to that, other than 

to say that the purpose of the demonstration program is to look at 

issues just like that one and to have a binational monitoring program in place that will identify issues, impediments to the normalization of relations with Mexico that we will need to address before 

we go any further. There are important pieces of information that 

we are trying to extract from this demonstration program, and it 

may very well be that we will come back with some recommendaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Aug 16, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34787 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
26

tions to the Congress about whether or not our insurance is adequate for U.S. and foreign trucking companies in the U.S. 

Mr. BRALEY. Well, as someone who has represented U.S. trucking 

companies and claims against U.S. trucking companies, one of the 

big concerns I have is where those records are going to be maintained. Because if there is a requirement that the documentation 

required currently under USCSA is maintained in this Country, 

the accessibility to people who are regulating and people who are 

required to pursue those types of issues is much easier than having 

to leave this Country and go to some remote location in Mexico 

where that trucking company may be headquartered and maintains 

its records. 

So can any of you answer for me what record-keeping requirements are going to be part of this pilot project, to make sure that 

we in this Country have a means to monitor the compliance of 

these companies? 

Mr. HILL. Sir, I would just say to you that when we go down and 

do our safety audit and then document what we find there, we will 

be retaining those records and they would be subject to anyone who 

would like to see them. They are a part of our files, so they would 

be kept in the United States as far as the compliance with the safety regulations for that Mexican carrier. 

Mr. BRALEY. But as I understand it, that is a snapshot taken at 

one point in time. It is not a dynamic record-keeping process, which 

is what you as companies complying with this regulation are required to have in their drivers’ files. 

Mr. HILL. Well, they are required to have the same kind of ongoing updates to their files, just as U.S. carriers are. 

But in terms of the issue of insurance, if they have any kind of 

deviation from their coverage, we are notified of that and we will 

take action to suspend their operating authority if they do not keep 

their insurance in force. 

Mr. SCOVEL. Congressman, if I may address your question as 

well. As Inspector General, my staff has not yet examined the insurance question in depth. I will note that the Committee’s request 

by letter of last week to my office to conduct an audit of the demonstration program specifically asked us to address insurance, and 

we will do so. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. That’s an excellent question. Mr. Scovel, you implied something in an earlier question. Has your staff been to Mexico to some of these companies that have already been chosen to 

review the comprehensive nature of the documents that they are 

keeping along the lines of what he is asking? Have you been given 

that opportunity? 

Mr. SCOVEL. We have not, not yet. We have made extensive visits 

to the border crossings. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Why haven’t you been down there? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Part of the problem involves the brand new nature 

of the demonstration program. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But is there any barrier? Will you be going 

there for certain to review the compliance on that side of the border? 

27

Mr. SCOVEL. That is a question that we will ask the Department 

to assist us with. In view of the fact, of course, that Mexico is a 

sovereign country, that will require some negotiations. We would 

hope, in order to respond to this Committee’s request for our current audit, that we will be granted authority at least to accompany 

FMCSA inspectors on the pre-authority safety audits. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. We would love to help you with that. Thank you. 

We will go on to Mr. Boustany. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I listened to the Inspector General’s commentary earlier and he 

mentioned that there are associated problems with reporting Mexican driver convictions in the U.S. How difficult is it going to be to 

implement the recommendations of the Inspector General? 

Mr. HILL. Congressman, as he indicated in his comments that we 

were responsive to their request to deal with this issue when we 

found out about it in Texas, the 40,000 citations and dispositions 

have been entered into the system and have been corrected. We are 

working with New Mexico, Arizona and California. We are going to 

make resources available to them to make sure that their current 

system of reporting that information is updated and current. We 

are going to be monitoring this as we go through the demonstration 

project. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. And you will expand this to the other States? My 

States of Louisiana has I-10 running through. I talk to sheriffs and 

State troopers all the time, and of course, this is going to be a concern. 

Mr. HILL. Yes. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. And making sure they are up to speed on the reporting and what mechanism they have to follow through to report 

convictions, to make sure that the data base is clean. 

Mr. HILL. Yes, one of the relationships that we have is not only 

with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, but also with 

the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. They 

are the people that oversee the bureaus of motor vehicles throughout the Country, not oversee, but they have an association, they 

have a close working relationship. So we are going to be making 

certain that they have a clear understanding of the importance of 

feeding this into the 52nd State. They have been briefed on it, but 

we are going to be, as we now move into this demonstration 

project, we will make certain that that is a part of the regular update, that we meet with them. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. Thank you. 

Mr. Scovel, your testimony mentions the development of systems 

that will permit electronic verification of licenses when a truck 

crosses the border. We currently don’t have that kind of system in 

place, do we? 

Mr. SCOVEL. My understanding, Congressman, is that FMCSA 

inspectors at that point, through the LIFIS system, can access 

Mexican records concerning their commercial driver licenses. Here 

in the States, we have the so-called 52nd State system, which allows FMCSA inspectors, as well as State and local law enforcement 

authorities, to check possible convictions of Mexican commercial 

drivers in this Country. 

28

Mr. BOUSTANY. We have concerns about the Mexican data, don’t 

we? 

Mr. SCOVEL. Actually, Congressman, our examination of that 

shows that the Mexican data base is accessible. We haven’t had an 

opportunity to verify all the content of that data base. However, we 

obtained data from FMCSA indicating that in April 2006, FMCSA 

and state inspectors checked some 20,000 commercial driver license 

records through the Mexican LIFIS system. About one out of five 

of those revealed problems with the Mexican driver’s license, they 

were expired, they were restricted, or the driver was not found in 

the database. That shows, we think, that first of all, the data base 

is accessible and secondly, the information that we are able to extract from it was helpful to FMCSA inspectors in making their 

judgments. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. So given that, you do not feel that the implementation of this demonstration project is premature? Do you feel like 

you have adequate information to work with to go forward and implement the project? 

Mr. SCOVEL. The purpose of the demonstration project, of course, 

is to test the number of these systems. And we give credit for 

FMCSA for taking what appears to be a limited and rather prudent 

step in that regard. There are a host of unknowns that cause my 

staff great concern. You referred earlier to the 52nd State system 

and its implementation beyond the four border States. You noted 

in my testimony, sir, that we found reporting inconsistencies and 

some problems in the four border States. While we certainly trust 

FMCSA to carefully ensure the full implementation of that program through the other States in the Country, we will of course 

verify that and report back to Congress. 

Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank you for your answer. I yield back. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. In a moment, we will have to adjourn for the votes. 

I am going to have to go to Homeland Security. I just wanted to 

say something at this point. 

I believe, and I realize this is ultimately an ideological struggle 

over free trade and this Administration’s opinions on that. They 

want to deliver for the Mexican government. But you are blissfully 

unaware, and I believe Mr. Filner will fill you in a little bit on this, 

on the reality of Mexico. Here is a quote from the article by 

Charles Bowden. These things are not made up. Talking to truck 

drivers: We make almost nothing, less than $300 a week. I work 

48 hours non-stop. I drive 2,400 kilometers per trip and get no time 

for turnaround. 

Every man at the table agrees on their biggest problem: the government. And by that they mean the police, especially federal, who 

will rob them at will. If you drive to Mexico City, another driver 

adds, you are robbed for sure. Police are the first to rob you. If you 

report a robbery, the police will try to make you the guilty person. 

Then they go on to talk about drug use. This is the reality in 

Mexico. It is truly the reality. And you are saying, oh, we checked 

20,000 commercial driver licenses against the data base kept by 

these same corrupt police officials. The people who are in that system are the ones that didn’t pay the bribes. 

You are just blissfully unaware of what you are doing here. And 

we are not going to put in place extraordinary safeguards to deal 

29

with it. I am just very disappointed in the Administration on this 

issue. We are talking about the highways of the United States of 

America and the safety of the American public. And all for an ideological hit on free trade and a little sop to Mexico, because they 

haven’t been able to deliver on some other things. 

This is extraordinary. The hearing will continue immediately 

after these votes. It should take about 20 minutes. We are recessed. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. FILNER. [Presiding] The Subcommittee on Highways and 

Transit will come back to order. 

Our Chairman, Mr. DeFazio, will be back in a few minutes. I will 

substitute until he does get here. As fate would have it, I was next 

on the list to start questions. I apologize, I did not hear your opening statement, although I read them. I also missed some of the 

questions, so if you have gone over it, just tell me. 

I happen to represent the entire California border with Mexico 

between San Diego and Yuma, Arizona. I have represented that 

area on the school board, on the city council and now in Congress 

for a total of almost 30 years. So I would say I have a little familiarity with the area. 

And I must say to you, with all due respect, that a lot of the comments that I heard and read sounded to me and to the people I represent as very unrealistic. You don’t really know what is going on 

there to make the kinds of statements that I have heard, and I will 

point out some of them. People throughout the border, whether 

they are in Texas or New Mexico, Arizona or California, are going 

to say that you guys have got to spend some time there with truckers, owners and with drivers on both sides of the border, as I have 

done for years, and then you would have a better sense of reality. 

My five minutes is not going to allow me to have a full sense of 

dealing with some of the delusionary statements you made, but let 

me try to go over some of them. When Mr. Braley asked a very 

good question about liability issues, your first statement was, oh, 

we have done that with Canada. No problem. 

There is a slight difference between dealing with a first world 

country and a third world nation, slight difference. And all the 

records and verifications and certifications and stuff that you are 

talking about hardly exist in Mexico. And if they do exist, they can 

be forged with great ease. 

So I am not sure that you fully understand the question or the 

issues. I have read in your statement that you are going to inspect 

every truck, every time, in this pilot program. And all drivers must 

have a valid commercial driver license, proof of medical fitness, and 

verification of compliance with hours of service. There is no way 

you will be able to do that in any satisfactory manner, in my humble opinion. 

That is, in my district, every day, 300,000 people go back and 

forth legally. There must be 5,000 to 6,000 trucks per day through 

my district. Your pilot, as I understand it, did you have a number 

anywhere of how many trucks you are going to do per day on this? 

Mr. HILL. Sir, we are trying to determine that, but we believe it 

will be somewhere under 1,000 trucks. We do know———

Mr. FILNER. Per day or per period? 

30

Mr. HILL. For the whole demonstration project. 

Mr. FILNER. So maybe you will have a few a day? What is it? 

See, you are using issues that have no relevance to the situation. 

At one crossing that I represent, 3,000 trucks go by. There is no 

way you can inspect anywhere near a few percent of those. The 

lines now, without a safety inspection, could be two hours long, 

could be four hours long, could be eight hours long. You are not 

going to inspect every one of them. You are going to inspect a certain percentage, 1 percent, maybe 2. 

The real volume of traffic is so big. If your pilot program is so 

small that you can accommodate it, it doesn’t give you any sense 

of the reality of the situation. 

Do you have a number for how many per day? 

Mr. HILL. We don’t know. We are going to distribute it geographically, because it will depend on where they come through the 

port and it will depend on the size of the carrier. But we do intend 

to evaluate the safety protocols that we have in place. That is the 

whole point of this demonstration project. 

Mr. FILNER. But you have had them in place for years and years. 

The volume is just so great, and the ability to circumvent the regulations is so easy that that doesn’t mean much. You said, I think, 

in answer to one question, that when you inspect a truck, what are 

you going to do? You are going to give them a green decal, right? 

Mr. HILL. It will vary in color. 

Mr. FILNER. That is the decal they give now. What are you going 

to give? 

Mr. HILL. We are going to inspect to ensure that their vehicle 

and driver meet the requirements that U.S. trucks meet. 

Mr. FILNER. How are you going to tell me their hours of service? 

Mr. HILL. We are going to first of all verify that they have a log 

book in seven previous days, just like we do for U.S. and Canadian 

drivers. Secondly, our people have laptop computers. The will enter 

into their point of destination and where they left from as supported by their bills of lading and other documents that are required to be carried. We will enter that to se if the drive time 

matches what their log indicates. And then we also have a way of 

verifying through an audit or compliance review what kind of compliance they are doing on a regular basis. If they are found to be 

in violation, then we will revoke their operating authority. 

Mr. FILNER. Are you sure they have a valid driver’s license? How 

are you going to make sure of that? 

Mr. HILL. We are going to do it through verification of the 

Licencia Federale Information System, which is the———

Mr. FILNER. See, you are talking about things that in our society 

work: verification, certification. There is no such thing in Mexico. 

I could get a driver’s license that would look to you perfectly valid. 

Just give me an hour and I will get it. And the data base could 

or could not have my name. Who knows? 

How do you check the insurance? They give you a form? 

Mr. HILL. They are going to be required to have insurance with 

a U.S. insurer———

Mr. FILNER. And how do you know they have it? 

Mr. HILL.—and that insurance company must certify with us 

that it is in force through a standard process that we now use with 

31

U.S. and Canadian carriers. It is not coming from the Mexican 

motor carrier, it is coming from the U.S. insurance company. 

Mr. FILNER. And if a company has 10 trucks, each of those trucks 

is going to be in your system? 

Mr. HILL. They are required, when they do their certification 

through the MSC 90 form, to state what kind of vehicles are going 

to be in force through that policy. That is something we will verify. 

Mr. FILNER. But is that specific vehicle on that verification, on 

that system? 

Mr. HILL. I would like to get back to you for the record. 

Mr. FILNER. It doesn’t, believe me. What they do now is give you 

some insurance form that they may have for one truck, but there 

may be 12 other trucks in their fleet, and it looks like they 

have———

Mr. HILL. Right now, the Mexican carriers that are going 

through the commercial zone and back to Mexico use a trip insurance process. They are not going to be allowed to use that in this 

long haul demonstration pilot. They mst have insurance in force 

with a U.S. insurer. That is different than what you are talking 

about with the trip insurance. 

Mr. FILNER. I want to know, is each vehicle going to be in this 

system for verification? Every vehicle that the truck company has? 

Mr. HILL. We are going to be determining———

Mr. FILNER. Or is it just for the company? 

Mr. HILL. We will be determining which vehicles by VIN number 

are going to be a part of the demonstration project. 

Mr. FILNER. You didn’t answer the question about the decal. 

After they have been certified safe, they get a decal? 

Mr. HILL. They get a commercial vehicle safety alliance decal. It 

is a decal that is now put on trucks anywhere in Canada, United 

States———

Mr. FILNER. So if they come back next day and they have that 

decal, you will just wave them through? 

Mr. HILL. We could, unless there is an obvious safety defect, then 

we could pull them in. 

Mr. FILNER. I am glad you have a lot of confidence in the decal. 

You can’t scrape off the decal without destroying it, right? I have 

watched windshields being taken from one truck to another, with 

ease. Every one of those things that you said, which in our society 

is so important, and people carry it out most of the time. When you 

see stuff on decals and when you see an insurance verification, it 

is real. It ain’t so with the ones you are going to get. 

And when you get to the real case, the volume is so heavy, that 

you will never be able to do it. You will never be able to handle 

this without more efficiency at the border crossing. I will tell you, 

if you are waiting two, three, four, five hours now, and the safety 

inspection is added onto that, there is not a lot of room at most of 

the border crossings to do that, for a large number of trucks. The 

highway patrol in California has a station. But only a few trucks 

can pull in there. And if you are going to do every one, every time, 

there is no way. There is just absolutely no way you can do it, believe me. So you are going to have to do only a certain number, and 

when you get down to that low percentage, then your system is not 

guaranteed. 

32

My time is up, but I just wanted to let you know, from the point 

of view of those of us who represent the border, what you are saying has just no sense of reality. There is no way that you can do 

most of this stuff, from our experience. I have stood at the border 

with American truckers, with truck owners, with Mexican truckers. 

They have shown me all the problems of trucks coming through, 

even ones that may pass a safety inspection. They showed me what 

the driver was doing that nobody could tell. Virtually every truck 

had something wrong, every truck, with either insurance or the 

driver’s certification, every truck. In fact, there was a pilot case 

used in California, I think the California Highway Patrol and you 

guys did this in the test case, and you had almost 100 percent of 

problems. 

You are going to have a major accident somewhere in Iowa, 

maybe with a school bus, the Mexican driver who hadn’t slept for 

three days, has no insurance, and he runs into an American bus. 

The American people are going to say, how did this happen? We 

should not let us get to that situation. 

Is Mrs. Miller here? 

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, yes, they 

moved me up here. 

Let me just say first of all, gentlemen, I appreciate your attendance here today, and what has been some very tough questioning, 

and I think in a very bipartisan way. Because I think there is tremendous consternation on the part of the Congress on both sides 

of the aisle about how this program is going to work. And I do, I 

am very cognizant of the fact that it is a manifestation of NAFTA. 

Coming from Michigan, I would tell you that I am not predisposed to be very sympathetic to NAFTA and some of the unintended consequences that have happened as a result of NAFTA. 

That is what happens sometimes with these trade agreements, I 

suppose. In my district, my colleague is from California, a border 

State. Michigan is also a border State. In fact, I-69, which is sometimes referred to as the NAFTA super corridor, or superhighway, 

however you characterize it, has its genesis actually in my district. 

The traffic transits over the Blue Water Bridge, which is the second busiest commercial artery on the northern tier of the Nation. 

I will also tell you that actually, before I cam to Congress, I was 

the Michigan secretary of state. That is one of three States where 

the secretary actually has jurisdiction and principal responsibility 

for all motor vehicle administration. So I was responsible for licensing all vehicle drivers, whether that is passenger vehicles or commercial driver licenses, or hazardous material endorsements on the 

CDLs. And I did note that you said there would be no hazmat 

transited in the initial pilot. 

But I will also tell you, I am very familiar with AMBA and the 

types of reciprocity of data bases amongst all of the States, which 

was a work in progress for many years. Sharing the data, with 

safety records and driving records, et cetera, amongst the States in 

our Country has gotten much, much better than it has ever been. 

It is not that way in Mexico. I do not know what the reciprocity 

is amongst the country of Mexico, but I did hear Mr. Scovel mention that when you were looking at the driving records, you noticed 

33

that one in five had some sort of discrepancy. If I can say respectfully, you seem to be somewhat cavalier about that. 

Let me tell you that, Michigan, if we had one in five, we would 

be in crisis, if there was a one in five problem with our driver’s licenses. So I don’t think the LIFIS system that is in Mexico does 

have the transparency that would give me any kind of comfort 

level. I think it is unfortunately that the Congress apparently cannot stop this program, because I would be very interested in trying 

to stop what you are having to carry out as a result of what the 

Congress did, and as a result of NAFTA as well. 

I guess I would ask, I note that there are approximately 100 

Mexican companies that have signed up to start this program. Only 

two American companies have signed up, which even I can figure 

out that something is wrong with that equation. Perhaps you could 

explain to me a bit your process, flesh it out a little bit, the process 

that you took for auditing these companies in regards to their 

records. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Congresswoman. A couple of points on the 

auditing of the records. First of all, we are in that process right 

now. We have done only two or three of those. I am not familiar 

with any more at this point. 

What we did is we looked at the people that applied and we are 

going down the list and we are going to do safety audits. What we 

are finding is that the first 16 that we had a list to go to audits 

on, 4 of them, when they heard that we were coming in to do the 

audits, have chosen not to participate. So we don’t know how many 

we will eventually have to go through in order to get to the 100 

carriers that we have talked about. 

And then beyond that, we have gone through a process of 

verifying their information before we ever get there to make sure 

it is current and that they do intend still to participate in long haul 

trucking. So that is how we have done it at this point, and I will 

be glad to go further, if you have any further questions. 

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. I don’t know that I have any questions. I suppose I am just making the statement that everybody 

else on this Committee has seemed to make during the course of 

this hearing, of how much distress there is and how uncomfortable 

people are about this entire pilot program. I am concerned they are 

going to run up I-69 through my State as well and up into Canada, 

if Canada will allow such a thing to happen. I don’t know if that 

is part of the NAFTA agreement or not. 

But I do have great consternation and as I say, it is unfortunate 

that Congress is not able to stop this. 

Thank you. 

Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Mrs. Miller. 

Mr. Poe? 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I represent part of southeast Texas, and I too am very concerned 

about this situation. I am not convinced at all that this is a wise 

idea. It looks like it is great for Mexico, and what does the United 

States get out of it? A player to be named later seems to be the 

only thing that we will get out of this. 

Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, where I have been numerous times, 

the largest inland port in the United States, about 5,000 18-wheelVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:19 Aug 16, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\34787 HTRANS1 PsN: JASON
34

ers a day cross that port of entry each direction. Only a fraction 

of those trucks are already inspected. Now we are going to have 

more trucks coming in, and only a fraction of those will be inspected. 

Recently in Houston, the NBC affiliate has done an examination 

of the trucking industry in the State of Texas and the people who 

drive those trucks. Texas leads the Nation in fatalities of 18-wheelers. Yesterday there were two wrecks, 18-wheelers in rush hour 

yesterday morning. It is a daily occurrence. It seems as though the 

inspection of the trucks and the truck drivers is something that occurs only on an occasional basis. Now we are going to have more 

trucks and more drivers. 

In Mexico, you can buy anything at the border for a price. You 

can get yourself a social security card, you can get yourself a commercial driver’s license in any State you want, you can have an insurance card and you can be anybody you want to be. And they will 

sell all that to you before you cross into the United States. I don’t 

see that that is going to change under this system and especially 

under the inspections. 

So my concern is, as stated by everybody else, while it may 

sound like a noble idea, the reality of the matter is, there is no 

guarantee that these vehicles will be inspected for safety, that their 

drivers, that we even know who they are, much less know about 

their criminal record or use or abuse of narcotics. And I just want 

to know what assurances the American public has that these 

trucks will meet standards of the American trucking industry, the 

drivers are as qualified as an American trucker, what assurances 

we have except we are going to inspect most of them or some of 

them. 

Mr. HILL. Congressman Poe, concerning the issue of the drivers 

and the security and their history, we are going to be verifying the 

driver information at the time that we do the pre-authority safety 

audit, we will be there physically in the company. We are going to 

be looking at the information. We are going to verify that the driver’s license is in force and it is accurate. 

Secondly, we are also working with DHS to make sure that we 

vett names through appropriate watch lists and drug-related data 

bases, so that we have assurance the people that are coming into 

this demonstration project are not going to be involved in nefarious 

activity through any data base that we have. 

Secondly, I would just say to you that as we move forward with 

the vehicle safety inspections, we are not only going to be inspecting these at the time of the pre-authority safety audit at the carrier’s place of business, but we are also going to be inspecting vehicles at the border now, we do that. Last year we did 210,000 with 

our partners here in Texas in the southern border region, 210,000 

inspections. So we are actively involved in already doing safety inspections along the commercial zone. 

Mr. POE. Of those 210,000, how many passed inspection? 

Mr. HILL. There were, the out of service rate for the Mexican carriers was 21 percent, which is comparable to what the U.S. out of 

service rate was nationally of 23 percent. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FILNER. How are you going to know if they leave? 

35

Mr. HILL. I am sorry, I did not understand. 

Mr. FILNER. Truck comes in, you have inspected it, you have 

guaranteed that we are safe. How long can that truck driver stay 

without anybody knowing it? Are you verifying the exit? 

Mr. HILL. We are working with DHS on that. 

Mr. FILNER. The answer is no, that you are not going to verify 

it. 

Mr. HILL. They are allowed to be in the Country for a specified 

period of time under a visa. 

Mr. FILNER. But look, and I am sure Mr. Hoffa can speak for 

himself, but you have a driver here who is going to work for far 

under what an American teamster is going to make, and you won’t 

even know it. There is no exit system, right? 

Mr. HILL. There is———

Mr. FILNER. So they can work all day from L.A. to San Diego or 

from Minneapolis to Chicago, back and forth for $5 and hour or 

$10, whatever. How are you going to know that, and how are you 

going to verify after a week that they are still safe? 

Mr. HILL. I would think that the carrier involved might have a 

little bit of interest in where his or her truck is. 

Mr. FILNER. That carrier may be a different carrier the next day. 

I mean, every answer that you give is as if it is a first world nation 

of contracts and memberships and laws. The same trucking company that you verified will be a different trucking company the 

next day. 

Mr. HILL. Those motor carriers that you are referring to that 

switch their identity every day, we are going to have a record of 

that, and if it doesn’t match, then we are going to be putting them 

out of service. 

Mr. FILNER. Meanwhile the truck driver is going back and forth. 

What are the consequences of that? 

Mr. HILL. If there is a motor carrier that you just described that 

is switching their identity, then they are operating outside the 

scope of their authority. When they are detected somewhere in this 

Country———

Mr. FILNER. But the trucks are already here. 

Mr. HILL.—then we will place the vehicle out of service, and the 

vehicle will not be allowed to move until it is properly licensed. 

Which is what we do now with U.S. carriers. 

Mr. FILNER. Just like we do with anybody who overstays their 

visa in this Country, we have noted them, we know they are here 

and we go after them, right? 

Mr. HILL. I am not prepared to talk about DHS protocol in terms 

of immigration and visa issues. But I can tell you about the safety———

Mr. FILNER. Yes, but I am just saying, those of us with experience with it, it is laughable what you are suggesting. It is not going 

to work. 

Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, we appreciate 

your being here. And we appreciate all you do. I know you work 

really hard in trying to come up with the right solutions to problems. But I too have real concerns with this. As the Chairman just 

mentioned, if you look at the State Department program with the 

36

visa, 43 percent of the people who are here illegally have overstayed their visa. Immigration and Naturalization is a mess. It is 

broken. 

So DOT does a good job with a lot of things, but I guess my problem is, I don’t see where you are going to do any better in a similar 

situation than these other agencies have done. It is a real concern. 

You mentioned that 860 applications to come over here, you have 

whittled it down to 150, 160. But again, the fact that only one or 

two of our carriers, in an effort to make a buck, are willing to venture across the border, that is a very telling thing. We compare 

with Canada, and yet we would certainly have countless carriers 

going the other way. 

You have mentioned a lot about different enforcement mechanisms. How many people are you going to hire? How much increased staff are you going to do? What do you anticipate a budget, 

increased budget? If you are not going to increase the budget for 

these things, then where are you taking it from to pay the bills for 

this? 

Mr. HILL. Congressman Boozman, I don’t know if you were here 

for my earlier answer, but when the 2002 Appropriations Act was 

put in place, there was dedicated funding given to hiring people for 

this particular project, not so much the demonstration project, but 

Mexican border enforcement. So the people that we have in place, 

the 274 FTEs that we have in place on the southern border, those 

are dedicated positions. They are not allowed to go up into Maine 

or to Michigan, so they are dedicated to the southern border. 

We do not anticipate asking you for an increase in the budget, 

because the Congress has already provided that funding specifically 

to do this particular border enforcement work. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. But there will be, it has been alluded to, the problem of the trucks not doing what they are supposed to do once they 

are in the United States. Our agencies now are basically busting 

a gut and there is no increased ability for them to enforce. How are 

you going to enforce all the potential problems that you are going 

to have once they get beyond the border? 

Mr. HILL. One of the purposes of the demonstration project is 

just that, we are going to take the concerns that I have heard expressed by skeptical people today, and we are going to evaluate 

whether or not we are going to see an effective long haul trucking 

operation coming into this Country and going south. If what you 

are saying is accurate and the U.S. trucks have difficulty going 

south, then I think that is a part of the evaluation process and we 

will have to make a determination whether this is really something 

that the U.S. Government wants to do. 

But our purpose is to at least try it and make sure that we fulfilling our NAFTA obligations. At this point, we are not doing so. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. I understand. But again, it seems like if you are 

going to do this, then you have to have enforcement in the interior 

and you have to budget somehow to do that. You have to pay the 

people to do it and you have to do it with a pilot program. I live 

in Arkansas. Seventy percent of the crime in Arkansas is meth-related. Most of that comes from Mexico. There is no way that you 

are not going to have increased smuggling, you are not going to 

37

have increased trafficking unless you go the whole way with the 

enforcement and the whole bit. 

If you are going to do this, and I think you have the ability to 

do it, but you do have to do it with the understanding that you are 

going to be held accountable. And we really are going to do that. 

I think that is fair. That is what we are elected to do. But you really are hearing some very valid concerns that really do need to be 

addressed. If you are going to do this, you can’t do it on the cheap. 

You have to do it right or it is going to bite you. 

Mr. HILL. I would just say to you, Congressman, in closing, that 

we have 13,000 State inspectors right now that we work with 

throughout this Country. I know Paul Kalonch and the people 

down in Arkansas quite well; I work with him. He is a past president of CVSA. People like that all throughout the Country are 

right now finding unsafe vehicles, unsafe drivers every day. They 

did over 3 million roadside inspections last year. 

I just heard about a commercial vehicle inspector from the State 

of Michigan, two or three weeks ago, who caught a major drug operation through a regular commercial vehicle inspection. I have 

done this my whole life, 29 years I have been in the State police. 

Believe me, I want this to work well. I do not want unsafe trucks 

in here. I don’t want unsafe drivers. I don’t want crime coming in 

here. 

But my job in the Executive Branch is to execute what the Congress has approved, and this is what I am here to do and I am trying to do it the way you folks are going to allow us to do it. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FILNER. If someone from the Arkansas Highway Patrol stops 

a truck and finds it unsafe because something happened after the 

inspection, of course, what happens to that truck and driver? 

Mr. HILL. In terms of a vehicle defect? 

Mr. FILNER. Vehicle, or person. 

Mr. HILL. CDL violation or drugs and alcohol? 

Mr. FILNER. Whatever. If the highway patrol, if the guy finds either a crime by the driver, insurance problem, safety problem, a 

drug problem there in Arkansas, what happens to the truck and 

the driver? 

Mr. HILL. The vehicle, if it is an offense that requires incarceration, the Customs and Border Protection staff will be called. They 

will come and deal with the legal alien and the vehicle will be 

placed out of service and it could either———

Mr. FILNER. He’s not illegal, you let him in. 

Mr. HILL. Pardon? 

Mr. FILNER. How are you saying illegal alien? You certified that 

they were legal when they came in. 

Mr. HILL. Excuse me. If they are found to be a legal alien and 

they are in violation of some State or Federal law, Customs and 

Border Protection will come and get them and take them back to 

their country. The vehicle will have to be moved by either a U.S. 

carrier or by an appropriate approved long haul Mexican carrier 

with authority. 

Mr. FILNER. You are going to have some problems. 

Mr. Diaz-Balart. 

38

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have heard a 

lot of very interesting points today, and I have to concur with some 

of the things that particularly Congress Poe and Congressman 

Boozman mentioned about making sure that we do this right if in 

fact it is going to happen. 

Now, I have a little bit of a different perspective. I represent 

Florida. We don’t have the issue of drivers across the border. However, I just keep hearing that if it is drivers or trucks coming from 

the great white north that it seems to be okay, but if it is coming 

from the not so white, brown Mexico, it is totally horrible and everything is going to fall apart, which frankly, I think is rather offensive, to tell you the truth, what I have heard a little bit today. 

Particularly when for some reason it looks like Canada is infallible 

and Mexico cannot be trusted, no matter what. 

My understanding would be, whether you look at cases, for example, like suspected terrorists that have come over the border, 

they have come from Canada, which means that they are not infallible like we know that the Mexican border clearly is not infallible. 

But I have just been hearing a lot of this talk, Mr. Chairman, 

about all these Mexicans are incapable of doing anything. And 

frankly, it borders on offensive, to tell you the truth. 

Not that there are not real issues. But what I would say is that 

the real issues are both from the Canadian side and the Mexican 

side, because just the fact that they are the great northern lighter 

skinned border does not mean that they are infallible. Because history has shown that, Mr. Chairman, that they are not infallible either. So my understanding is that that is what the pilot program 

is all about, to try and figure out what some of those issues are, 

correct? To try to solve some of those issues. 

But I am hoping that we are not only looking at, as we need to, 

what some of those issues are with Mexico, which I know there will 

be many of them, you have heard a lot of the issues today, but I 

hope that we are not assuming that because it comes from Canada 

that for some reason everything is okay there and you cannot get 

fake decals. The Chairman just mentioned a little while ago how 

he has seen windshields being shifted. Those are not Mexican 

trucks. 

So we already have issues. I am just hoping that we don’t only 

emphasize Mexico and we look at the whole issue, and what are 

you doing to make sure that we are not going to be forgetting other 

borders just because they may not be brown. 

Mr. HILL. Thank you, Congressman. Just for the record, I want 

to state that safety doesn’t have a color lens here. Safety is safety, 

it is vehicles, drivers, we are going to be doing safety regardless of 

what nationality is involved in the trucking operation. 

Secondly, I would say to you that as a part of the appropriations 

process, the Congress has given $32 million to us every year during 

this reauthorization period to address border enforcement grants 

for both the north and the south. So there is money going to the 

States of Michigan, available to the States of Michigan, Maine, 

Vermont, all of those northern tiered States to do border enforcement for Canadian carriers, just as we do with the ones down in 

the south. 

39

The only caveat is that because of the Section 350 requirements 

in the 2002 Appropriations Act, we are specifically required to do 

some things that are unique to the Mexican carrier population, 

which is going into Mexico and doing the audit. But I can assure 

you that we have, working with our States, we regularly do enforcement along the northern border and we are going to continue 

that. 

Mr. DIAZ-BALART. What happens when the pilot program is concluded? It is done and then what steps are taken to make sure that 

the issues that you have found, and I am sure there will be a myriad of issues, are actually dealt with and not just kind of passed 

over like, oh, we did the pilot program, not let’s go and expand it. 

How are you going to deal with those issues and how are you going 

to aggressively deal with those issues? 

Mr. HILL. As the Under Secretary indicated earlier, this evaluation process is not going to happen at a point in time on the 11th 

month at the end of the project. It is going to be throughout the 

demonstration project. 

I think one of the values to what we are doing by allowing us 

to observe these first few months of this project with the Mexican 

motor carriers is to really focus in on the safety issues and determine how well they are complying or not complying in accordance 

with Congressional requirements. 

But to answer your specific question about the evaluation, we are 

going to make sure that there has been equal treatment south of 

the border as we are seeing with the Mexican carriers coming 

north. So that is going to be a key part of what we evaluate. 

Obviously, safety is the standard that we have to make sure that 

people who are participating in this are going to meet safety standards. I do not want there to be an event, I do not want there to 

be some kind of a crash that occurs that draws attention to this. 

We have to make sure we have done everything that the Congress 

has asked us to do, and we are committed to doing that through 

evaluation process. 

Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart. Mr. Miller? 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you very much. 

I have some questions, and I am not trying to be argumentative, 

I have some questions I have not been able to answer based on 

what I have heard. There is no way of tracking these drivers when 

they come into the United States. Let’s say you have a truck coming across the border and you have two drivers, one on the passenger side, one in the driver’s side. How do you know that both 

those drivers go back? 

Mr. HILL. I can only tell you that from a safety perspective, we 

are going to be verifying whether or not the driver and that passenger in the vehicle is authorized to be there. That is a current 

part of our regulations. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. What type of authorization do they 

need? They don’t need a visa? 

Mr. HILL. They do need a visa, I am told by the Customs and 

Border people. I don’t have a DHS perspective, I don’t have all of 

their perspective on this. But it is my understanding when they 

come into the Country and they declare that they are going to be 

going into the United States, at that point they will be pulled out, 

40

they have an individual interview with Customs and Border Protection, they go into their data base and they begin tracking them. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. Okay. The Chairman kind of touched 

on a question, let’s say a truck comes from Ensenada with a load. 

They come from Ensenada, Mexico, they drive to Portland, Oregon 

to drop their load off. Then they pick up a load in Portland and 

they drive it back to Grants Pass and drop it off, pick a load up 

at Grants Pass to Sacramento, drop it off, pick a load up in Sacramento to Los Angeles, drop it off, pick up a load in Los Angeles 

to San Diego, drop it off, pick a load up in San Diego and they are 

going back to Ensenada. 

How are we to track that in any way? How do we know that is 

not occurring? All it would take is some cooperation with some 

American scheduler who schedules pickups. I know it sounds like 

an argumentative question. It is really not meant to be. But this 

could very likely happen. And the guy going back, he is going to 

be awful cheap. How do we make sure that does not occur? 

Mr. HILL. Congressman, I don’t think it is an argumentative 

question. It is a relevant question and it is a term that we use in 

the industry today called cabotage. Cabotage simply says that if 

you are coming in from Canada or you are coming in from Mexico, 

you can only deliver to a point in the U.S. and pick up a load and 

take it back. I think the answer to that is, through regular inspections that people are subjected to and going through weigh stations, using systems that we now have in place throughout this 

Country. I know Oregon has a very thorough process at the weigh 

station and they look at the way that is———

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So you would track that truck to 

every weigh station? 

Mr. HILL. No, we are not going to track it. But what I am saying 

is, in the course of them coming through there, we would verify 

with their bill of lading and make sure that the loads are in fact 

where they are supposed to be going. And if they detect cabotage, 

then they are going to be subject to being placed out of service, 

they cannot move the load. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. And each time these trucks come 

across the border, do they have to go through the safety inspection 

process, or is it a one time process? 

Mr. HILL. They have to be through a safety inspection process at 

least every 90 days, as verified by a safety decal. If we see an obvious safety defect or we want to inspect the vehicle, we can do so 

without having to just wave it on through because of a safety decal. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I don’t know if it was discussed earlier, but in 1994, the Mexican engines met our emissions standards, so U.S. EPA, up to 2003, but the Mexicans have not revised 

the standard which requires a 50 percent reduction, that was in 

2004 to 2007, and a 90 percent reduction of nitrogen oxide in 2007 

and beyond. Are we mandating that they meet those new standards? 

Mr. HILL. When we have vehicles coming in from out of country, 

they are required to comply with the standards that are in place 

in those States. So if States are enforcing air quality standards, as 

they do in California with the———

41

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. So they have to meet the new standards? 

Mr. HILL. They would have to comply with those standards. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. My concern is a lot of our railroads 

are being impacted because they are trying to cut the standards, 

because the pollution is being emitted. Our own truckers are having to buy a new type of diesels to meet the standards. These Mexican trucks are actually going to have to do that? 

Mr. HILL. One of the things that we have found, Congressman, 

in doing the two audits that we have already, is that the vehicles 

that are being proposed to come into the Country for long haul operations are newer models. The 2003, for example, is the most recent version of model coming into the Country. Those would meet 

the U.S. standards. So we anticipate they will be sending their best 

equipment north, so that it would avoid breaking down, and therefore we believe they will be using newer equipment. 

Mr. MILLER OF CALIFORNIA. I really hope that the Government 

is going to enforce this numerous pickups standards, where they 

are not allowed to stop in numerous cities to pick up cargo to be 

shipped. Because we have lost so many jobs in this Country to illegal immigration. To lose more jobs to illegal activity by those who 

are supposed to be here legally is just one more burden I think it 

just unacceptable by the American worker. So I just would strongly 

encourage some type of mechanism or program be developed and 

is in place that we can actually track these weight loads and make 

sure there is no disparity between those and we are really protecting American jobs. That is the biggest concern I have. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. [Presiding] I thank the gentleman for his questions. 

Just a couple of quick questions, I appreciate the indulgence of 

the Committee being here so long. Just to follow up on two questions raised by the gentleman. On the emissions standards, a 2003 

truck would not meet the 2007 or the proposed 2010 standards, 

and we are not going to require that they do? Are we going to have 

a requirement that any truck crossing the border meets the 2007 

standards, and a requirement that any truck crossing the border 

meets the 2010 standards? Are we going to require that? Do the 

Mexicans have the low sulfur diesel available to those people? 

Mr. HILL. I am told that they are working on improving the low 

sulfur diesel fuel access in their country. And what we are going 

to be requiring them to do is comply with the law, U.S. standards 

as they come into this Country. But we don’t enforce that. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. So basically, we are going to have Mexican 

trucks coming into the U.S. and competing with U.S. trucks who 

don’t meet the emissions standards and haven’t had to make the 

investment or the expense. 

On the other issue about the cabotage, I think the gentleman 

raised a very good point. What percent of the trucks en route does 

FMCSA stop and examine within the U.S. on an annual basis? Of 

all the trucks out there and all their movement, what percentage? 

Mr. HILL. I would have to get back to you for the record. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So you would be like single low digits, right, in 

terms of truck trips? 

42

Mr. HILL. I would really have to look at the data. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, the question, but that goes to the question 

of enforcement of cabotage. The truck comes to the border, it has 

a manifest, it says, I am going to New York. Then apparently they 

get to New York, they could deadhead all the way over to Ohio and 

then come back down with a load from Ohio, that would be allowed? You don’t have to go to New York and back from New York. 

You could go to New York, you could drive the truck over and pick 

something up in Chicago and drive it back down, is that correct? 

It’s just international movement that’s required? 

Mr. HILL. Yes. I am not sure that would be a financially smart 

move for the truck, but that could happen, yes. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, depending upon the cost of labor versus the 

cost of fuel and when you are not towing a trailer, who knows. But 

let’s just leave that for now. But that is the legal framework. 

But then, who is going to intercept that truck between New York 

and Chicago on a regular basis to determine that in fact it wasn’t 

scheduled to take a load from New York to Chicago. It went to New 

York, the manifest says it is going to come back from Chicago, but 

only if the random occurrence of a stop happens between New York 

and Chicago and the person is smart enough to ask for the manifest and can read the manifest, if it is in English, and determine 

whether or not that truck is en route or not and see that it is carrying a load and it was only supposed to go to New York with a 

load and back from Chicago, and in between it is not supposed to 

have a load? It seems to me like we are really opening the door to 

the abuses that the gentleman on that end raised. I just don’t see 

that we are building in some certainty here that we are going to 

prevent cabotage. And there is going to be a tremendous temptation on the part of agents to do cabotage, because they can save 

money. 

Mr. HILL. Would you like me to respond? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Sure. 

Mr. HILL. Okay. To the first one, yes, I am quite confident that 

the inspectors are smart enough to look at the manifest and determine where that is, because that is a part of their current process 

in doing an inspection. 

Secondly, this will not happen in the demonstration project the 

way that it would happen if we were doing this on a full-scale 

opening of the border. But the compliance review has to be done 

before any permanent authority is granted. So in other words, we 

will go in and look at the books of this carrier, and we will examine 

at that time whether or not they are doing cabotage violations. And 

if they are, through their bills, through their records that they 

have been at places other than where they said they were going to 

do in terms of international movements, then we will take action 

and deal with their operating authority. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. If you were doing something illegal, would you put 

it on the books? Again, the faith—do you know what the word 

comic book refers to among truckers? 

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir, I have heard that. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So I am sure the same thing could go on in this 

area. I doubt that if someone illegally moved product between New 

York and Chicago that they would have declared that and their 

43

company would record it on the books in Mexico that we could go 

down and examine and find. 

But in any case, just one last question. And I don’t know if Ms. 

Napolitano or Mr. Filner followed up on this. But again, just back 

to the initial agreement. I just find it disturbing that it says first 

stage, six months, second stage, six months, third stage, commences at the end of the twelve months. Mr. Shane has said there 

will be an evaluation before we open our borders to any and all 

Mexican trucks. 

But then you go to page two, next steps, pilot program, joint formal announcement, done, creation, start of operations, technical 

bond, done, identification of Mexican carriers, in process. The beginning of the pilot program, hasn’t happened yet. But you go on 

down and you get to the end again, and it says, beginning of pilot 

program, second stage, U.S. trucks, and then beginning of the permanent opening third stage. 

Again, this is all initial. You have to understand that from a policy maker’s perspective, we look at something that says first stage, 

second stage, third stage, third stage is we totally open our borders 

after 12 months and it is repeated on two pages and it is initialed, 

we have to assume that there is some understanding between the 

two governments that this thing is going forward. 

Mr. SHANE. There is not such an understanding. The understanding is as we have stated today, there will be an evaluation 

preceding any normalization of the relationship between the United 

States and Mexico on motor carrier transportation. That is about 

as clear as I can make it. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. The word normalization meaning what you think 

must happen pursuant to the requirements of NAFTA, that is what 

you mean by normalization, i.e., Mexican trucks can drive anywhere in the United States of America? 

Mr. SHANE. And U.S. trucks driving anywhere in Mexico. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. But we already had, as I put in the record, 

the security warning and the testimony that I put in the record 

saying that actually, given the high degree of hijacking that U.S. 

companies really are kind of reluctant to go into Mexico and they 

have an advisory against going into Mexico, because the Government isn’t there to protect them. But that same Government is 

keeping the records that will protect the American people. 

I don’t have any further questions. Mrs. Miller? 

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Nothing further, thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Ms. Napolitano. One last bite of the apple, then we 

will let these gentlemen go. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. 

We talk about the non-enforcement area of fuel, leaded fuel. If 

I am understanding correctly, with California, EPA is now working 

on the ports to assure that the ships coming in have lesser sulfur, 

to be able to burn less fuel because of the pollution of the port area, 

which then blows into my area, blows out into the Inland Empire. 

We are not looking at something similar to be able to ensure that 

those trucks coming in are utilizing the low sulfur fuel or unleaded, 

whichever? 

44

Mr. HILL. I wish that I could tell you that I am EPA specialist 

and could address all of this. I will be glad to follow up on the 

record with any specific questions you have about the environmental issues from our coworkers at EPA. But I do know from my 

limited visits out there, your area, the Long Beach port and so 

forth, that there are initiatives underway with EPA and the country of Mexico to develop projects along the border to decrease the 

incidence of high sulfur usage. 

Secondly, they are also developing corridors in this country of 

Mexico for trade routes for U.S. trucks to have low sulfur diesel 

fuel. Because it is critical that they have that in place in order for 

our trucks that use the low sulfur diesel fuel after 2007, that they 

have that access. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. The reason I am asking is that I did talk to 

EPA and they were telling me they were working on it with the 

port authorities. 

Mr. HILL. Okay. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Then the last question that I will have has to 

do with, and I am not sure if it was covered before, but does Mexico 

have certified labs and protocols in place for drug and alcohol testing of their drivers, and how is our U.S. DOT planning to address 

the drug and alcohol testing of Mexican truck drivers? 

Mr. HILL. No, they do not have drug certified labs in Mexico at 

this time. They have been working with us to do that, but we have 

not seen their labs certified. We did enter into an agreement with 

the Secretary of Communication and Transport in 1998 to have 

them use collection sites. Those collection sites are staffed by SCT 

employees and there are, I think, seven of them at this time. 

Mr. FILNER. I am sorry, whose employees? 

Mr. HILL. SCT, Secretary of Communication and Transport, 

which is the counterpart to our Department of Transportation in 

Mexico. Government employees there supervise the collection of the 

specimens and then they are sent to a U.S. lab, where they will be 

tested in a certified U.S. lab. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Because that goes to the safety, again, on our 

highways and our roads, other transportation vehicles. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have questions for the record that I will 

introduce. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I always encourage questions for the record, although I have never had one meaningfully answered in 21 years. 

But you can always try. And that was both Democratic and Republican administrations. 

Thank you, thank you for your very generous grant of time. I am 

sorry about the interruption with the votes. Thanks again. 

With that, we would dismiss this panel and call the next panel. 

Thank you. 

Our next panel will be Mr. James P. Hoffa, General President, 

International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Ms. Jacqueline S. Gillan, 

Vice President, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Washington, D.C.; and Major Mark Rogers, Texas Department of Public 

Safety, State Commercial Vehicle Safety Coordinator. If you could 

all take your seats and proceed in that order. 

45

Again, I would also thank this panel in advance for their indulgence. I know this has taken a bit longer than we thought to get 

to you. So with that, President Hoffa. 

TESTIMONY OF JAMES P. HOFFA, GENERAL PRESIDENT, 

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS; JACQUELINE S. GILLAN, VICE PRESIDENT, ADVOCATES FOR 

HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY; MAJOR MARK ROGERS, STATE 

COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SAFETY COORDINATOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY 

Mr. HOFFA. Chairman DeFazio, thank you for the opportunity to 

appear here, especially before this Committee, and Congresswoman 

Miller, who is our former Secretary of State in the State of Michigan. It is an honor to be here. 

I am here as General President of the International Brotherhood 

of Teamsters. We represent over 3 million members and their families that every day use the American highway system. Over 

600,000 of our members every day deliver goods and services using 

our American highways. Like every American, they have a right to 

safe American highways. I am very alarmed that the DOT is moving forward with this dangerous pilot project that leaves so many 

questions about what is going on in Mexico, and many of them 

have been raised here today. I have outlined these concerns in my 

written testimony. 

Mr. Chairman, the Bush Administration is playing Russian roulette with the highways and the safety on America’s highways. 

DOT resources do not exist to inspect the thousands of trucks 

called for in the so-called pilot program. The Mexican government 

has had 15 years to address the issue of drug safety and they have 

failed miserably. They have had 15 years to implement a simple 

computer program like we have in the United States, like all of us 

have here in every State, all coordinated together, and they have 

not done that. They have had 15 years to have a driver safety program and a program that, protocols like we have in the United 

States, and they have not done that. They have had 15 years to 

create a driver protocol for drug testing and physicals. And they 

have not done that. 

I am very shocked by the testimony here today, by the way, 

which was different than what they gave to the Senate. When they 

testified before the Senate, they said, well, we are going to collect 

the drug samples down in Mexico. There is not one drug testing lab 

in Mexico. After 15 years, they do not have a drug testing facility 

down in Mexico. 

Then today, Mr. Hill said, oh, we are going to do it at the border. 

Then in part of his testimony after that he said, well, we are going 

to collect them down in Mexico. Well what is it? Where are they 

going to be collected? And what is the temperature? I know how 

we do it in the United States. People almost watch you take the 

specimen to make sure it is your specimen. We all know how it is 

done, and it is not going to be done in Mexico. 

Left to its own, without the pressure of the United States, Mexico trucks are even worse than they were before. Mexican truck 

drivers are underpaid, untrained and overworked. They are often 

forced to drive 24 hours without sleep. This is not the fault of the 

46

Mexican worker. The sole responsibility for meeting the standards 

required by NAFTA and the Murray-Shelby safety provisions that 

Congress enacted in 2001 lies with the Mexican government and 

the United States Government. 

I would like to tell this Subcommittee what the Teamsters Union 

has learned about Mexican trucking. Each of you has a copy of an 

investigative report that we did in the Teamster magazine, and I 

have provided that and I would ask it be made part of the record. 

This is the story of an investigative report done by Charles Bowden, who in 1999 wrote a story about what is going on with the 

Mexican drivers. He was told in 1999 that they were exploited, exhausted, the truck drivers pushed to the limit by their employers. 

And guess what? Seven years later, he found the same thing is 

going on. 

Here are a few excerpts from Mr. Bowden’s article, which are 

based on interviews with Mexican truckers. One said this: ‘‘The 

longest distance I drive is from Ensenada to Cancun, 2,700 miles, 

five days and six nights. I do it myself and I do it without a second 

driver.’’ According to Bowden, they are all family men who run the 

highways at least 25 days a month, and they are adamant about 

two things, that nobody can make these runs without using cocaine 

and crystal meth, and they all use marijuana to come down from 

the high. 

These drivers are victims of a system that the U.S. will depend 

on to enforce drug and alcohol testing and hours of service regulations. Is this the so-called pilot program that we are supposed to 

rely on? What kind of confidence can we have in that program? The 

Transportation Department Inspector General just a couple of 

years ago found, after a very close inspection, that they did not 

meet the standards of the American highways. 

The fact that there is no lab, after all this time, tells us an awful 

lot. 

What we are asked to do is believe that the Mexican driver will 

produce a log book at the border that is accurate about all his driving for the eight days previous in Mexico. Who would really believe 

that? Even now in the commercial zone, of the top out of service 

violations for Mexican drivers that are screened, 15 have no log 

books and 22 percent try and come across the border without commercial driver’s licenses. We don’t even know who these drivers are 

because of the lack of a computer. 

So I would say, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, there are so many safety and homeland security issues 

that need to be addressed before one Mexican truck comes across 

the border that we should just say stop. We have to know that our 

highways have to be safe. I would hope that Congress could do 

something to stop this dangerous program, which is really a mad 

rush to judgment, before this Administration runs out. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, President Hoffa. 

Ms. Gillan. 

Ms. GILLAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify. I am Jackie Gillan, Vice President of Advocates 

for Highway and Auto Safety. 

47

I would also like to add that the preeminent truck safety groups, 

Public Citizen, CRASH and Parents Against Tired Truckers, also 

support the views in my statement. 

With only five minutes, it is hard to know where to start. My 21-

page statement can be summed up in three simple words: don’t do 

it. 

Now let me explain why. The announced pilot program or socalled demonstration project has all the elements of a perfect 

storm. This perfect storm consists of a failed safety agency, the 

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, overseeing this 

project, major safety deficiencies at the border, a cynical decision 

to open the border under the ruse of a phony pilot program, and 

lastly, the American public paying the price. 

I really want to digress for a moment, because coincidentally 

with this hearing, we had a conference this weekend called Sorrow 

to Strength, where we had 65 people, family members who have 

lost someone in a truck crash attend. Many of those people are 

here in the hearing room today. They have absolutely no confidence 

that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration can protect 

their safety over domestic trucking, let alone foreign trucking. We 

have Jane Mathis, who lost her son and his bride of five days in 

a truck crash; the Willbornes from Oklahoma whose son was moving into the dorm his freshman year and was killed by a truck 

crash; and we have the Woods family here from Virginia, whose 

daughter was killed returning to college from her fall break. These 

are the people that this pilot program is going to affect if we don’t 

get it right. 

FMCSA has failed to meet any of its safety goals in the last 

seven years. We still kill over 5,000 people annually and 115,000 

or more are injured. FMCSA has ignored Congressional mandates 

to issue safety regulations. And when they have issued them, they 

are weak and ineffective. There are two important safety regulations, the hours of service regulation for truck drivers and entry 

level driver training has been overturned unanimously in the court 

with stinging opinions. I am also going to submit for the record a 

report that we released yesterday, The FMCSA, A Failed Agency, 

that goes into great detail to all of this. 

The second component of our perfect storm is inadequate border 

safety. We have already heard about some of the safety deficiencies 

that are already at the border. I would like to point out that even 

the IG in his testimony this afternoon used the term that DOT has 

substantially met the requirements of Section 350, and he did not 

say that they have met all the requirements of Section 350. There 

are still serious questions about drug and alcohol testing, medical 

and physical fitness of drivers, and whether the States are now enforcing out of service for foreign carriers. 

I would also like to mention motor coach bus inspections, which 

the IG has said are sporadic or non-existent, and the issue of hazardous materials transportation with Mexico-domiciled carriers. 

Now, I know these are not part of the pilot program yet. But because Section 350(a) and (b) expressly state that ‘‘No vehicles 

owned or leased by a Mexican motor carrier can be permitted to operate beyond the border zone until the provisions of Section 350 

have been fulfilled,’’ this is a legal bar to any commercial vehicles 

48

being granted operating authority to travel beyond the border 

zones, until all the requirements of Section 350 are fully completed. 

Lastly, we have the third component of the perfect storm is the 

one year pilot program, a calculated, cynical move to open the border regardless of safety. Last week’s testimony before the Senate 

Appropriations Committee made it clear there was no planning involved, no methodology to assure an objective trial, no criteria for 

selection of participating motor carriers. We also agree with you, 

Chairman DeFazio, that the pilot program that they are composing 

does not comply with the law drafted by this Committee in 1998 

as part of the TEA-21 Section 407 governing the conduct of pilot 

programs by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Calling the 

pilot program a demonstration project fools no one. 

We are also concerned because this pilot program was kept in secrecy for many years, even though Secretary Peters at her confirmation hearing assured the Senate Commerce Committee that 

there wasn’t any pilot program in the making. Last October, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety filed a FOIA to get the documents to better understand and see what they were thinking of in 

doing this pilot program. The Administration stalled and stalled, 

and even though they were supposed to provide the documents 

within 20 days, no documents were made available, and therefore 

just this morning, we were forced to file suit in Federal court in 

an effort to get these documents. 

There is little question that the intent of the pilot program is to 

supply the justification for opening the border once the year is 

over. Mr. Chairman, we cannot let an agency that has failed us so 

miserably in protecting domestic trucking operations say, trust us 

on this critical decision affecting American families. And I would 

also like to add that with CAFTA, once the Mexican border is open 

completely, we do not have any Section 350 guaranteeing the 

trucks that are going to be coming up through Central America. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Ms. Gillan. 

Major Rogers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Good afternoon, sir. Mr. Chairman and members, 

my name is Mark Rogers. I represent the Texas Department of 

Public Safety, and in my opening statement I would like to give 

you an overview of our Texas border and safety program. 

Our border safety inspection program is operated to provide both 

an effective and efficient commercial vehicle enforcement program 

that is designed to ensure public safety and security, prevent the 

premature and unnecessary deterioration of our State highway infrastructure due to overweight vehicles, and to create an environment that promotes both vital and safe commerce in the State of 

Texas. 

Our program is designed to ensure that only competent drivers 

are operating safe vehicles in compliance with our State statute. 

Our program also encourages the trucking industry to take a greater participatory role in resolving any transportation issues that 

arise. It is important to note that at our Texas-Mexico border, our 

goal is not only ensure safe vehicles, but it is not to impeded legally compliant vehicles as well. 

49

When we determine whether to stop and inspect a vehicle, we basically use four criterion. We visually inspect each vehicle that 

passes by our inspection facility to see if there are any safety defects, we weigh each vehicle on weigh and motion equipment, we 

look to see if the vehicle is displaying the valid commercial vehicle 

safety decal, and then we also look to see if there is any other obvious defect or violation of our State statutes that we enforce. 

It is important to note that our border inspection program does 

screen 100 percent of the vehicles visually. We also screen 100 percent of the vehicles via weigh and motion scales. But we generally 

only conduct a more thorough inspection of only about 3 to 5 percent of the vehicles that actually cross the border. In calendar year 

2006, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency indicated 

that there were over 3 million commercial motor vehicles that 

crossed from Mexico into Texas. During this same period, the Department of Public Safety did an inspection on more than 101,000 

of these vehicles. During these 101,000-plus inspections, we placed 

23,651 of those vehicles out of service, or had a 23 percent out of 

service rate. At the same time, during these 101,000-plus inspections, we only placed 649 drivers out of service, which is less than 

1 percent of the total inspections that we have done. 

Thus far in calendar year 2007, our out of service rate for vehicles continues to be at 23 percent, and our out of service rate for 

drivers continues to be less than 1 percent. These figures at the national level are comparable to the national out of service statistics 

for vehicles, but they are much lower than the national out of service statistics for drivers. We attribute this to an aggressive enforcement program at the border. These statistics are considerably 

lower than when we first started our program back in 1995, when 

we virtually had a 100 percent out of service rate. 

At present, the Department of Public Safety staffs the nine largest ports of entry on a daily basis. We staff our facilities at the 

same hours that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection import 

lots are open. And our current border staff numbers 310. The Texas 

Department of Public Safety remains committed to assisting the 

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in meeting its requirements to ensure compliance with Section 350 of the fiscal year 

2002 U.S. Department of Transportation Appropriation Act. It is 

through the support of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that our border enforcement program has grown to its 

present level. 

I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to address 

the committee on this important issue, and would be happy to answer any questions concerning our Texas border inspection program. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Major. 

President Hoffa, obviously truck drivers often frequent the same 

places, truck stops, whatever. I am wondering, what do you hear? 

We have the story by this author, which seems quite credible in 

terms of the problems in Mexico with the use of drugs by the drivers, drivers who are abused by their companies, made to drive extremely long distances without rest breaks, basically no recognition 

for hours of service. 

50

What are your folks who come in contact, do you have any substantial number of members who come in contact with some of the 

Mexican drivers? Have you heard confirmation of this with drivers 

who are coming across the border? 

Mr. HOFFA. We hear this down in the commercial zone, when the 

drivers come across, where there is interaction between the Mexican drivers, where they drop off the trucks, and then the American 

truckers take them throughout the United States. There are a lot 

of complaints from those drivers about how hard they have to 

work, how they have to use drugs. Basically, our drivers are saying, my God, if those people get over here, it is going to really be 

a problem. 

I think it is obvious that these drivers don’t have the same training, they are going to be pushed. When you get a driver that is sent 

from Monterrey, Mexico, to deliver something in Detroit, and he 

doesn’t get it done in time, how does he get home? The whole story 

is, what is his redress? Who does he complain to? He doesn’t have 

a union. He will be fired if he doesn’t do it in a certain period of 

time or do it the way the company wants, because he doesn’t have 

the protection that we have of hours in service, of the wage and 

hour laws that a person in the United States would have. They 

really have no protection. 

And this whole idea about, we are going to monitor the hours 

and it is going to be kept in Mexico, well, how are we going to get 

those records down in Mexico and how do we know how they are 

kept? So I think that what I have heard from the drivers is that 

it is going to be a big danger if they come across, and that is from 

the American drivers. The Mexican drivers, they are looking at it 

from the standpoint that, I will do whatever I have to do to make 

a living, because I have a family. 

It is the same idea about what is coming across the border. We 

have thousands of people, illegal aliens coming across the border. 

They are coming here because there are jobs here, there is money 

here. I think you are going to see the same thing with the Mexican 

drivers. They want access because they want to make money. It is 

the same thing about people coming across the border. And the answer is, they don’t have the training and they are going to be 

pushed very, very hard and it is going to create a serious problem 

on American highways. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Okay. Major, there was something that I brought 

up with Mr. Hill yesterday, and since it relates to Texas, I thought 

I would ask you about it. In the Inspector General’s report, they 

talked about something disturbing, which is that we seem to see 

a huge drop-off in traffic convictions from Mexican-licensed drivers 

from January through May 2006. But then the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that Texas had just stopped putting information into the data base, that in fact there had been 

40,000 violations during that relatively short period of time. That 

is basically a five month period, that is 8,000 a month. 

And now they go on to say that that Texas is still not providing 

the information electronically, there is a manual process. Can you 

address that a little bit? It doesn’t give us a high level of confidence. That is on our side of the border, let alone what really goes 

51

on on their side of the border in terms of violations, whether or not 

they are recorded properly to their record and all that. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, sir. Citations primarily are written at the border via a laptop computer. They are generated for the driver and 

then the driver is given a copy to report to the court. Then the citation is not electronically transmitted to the court. That is a manual 

process. It is taken to the local court and it is filed by the officer. 

Once adjudication occurs on the offense, some of the courts do electronically report dispositions back to the Department of Public 

Safety, others do not. That is a very manual process. Essentially, 

the reverse side of the citation is filled out with the violation information and that is forwarded by the court to the Department of 

Public Safety for entry into the commercial vehicle driver’s license 

information system. 

There were problems within the department’s ability to be able 

to report those violations. It was discovered and corrective measures were taken with the support of FMCSA. They are currently 

being reported in an electronic manner. 

I also want to assure you, sir, it hasn’t been because we have reduced the number of citations that we were writing. The number 

of citations has remained pretty static throughout this entire period. We believe we have corrected our reporting difficulties. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. You said that basically you are inspecting somewhere between 3 and 5 percent of the vehicles crossing the border, 

and yet you had 23 percent placed out of service, 23,651 vehicles. 

Can we expect that if, I mean, let’s put it this way. Are those 3 

to 5 percent because there was something obvious going on? Or is 

that just a random sample? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, sir, it is because there was something wrong 

with the truck, the inspector selected that particular vehicle. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So he saw it moving and saw something? 

Mr. ROGERS. Correct. As it was rolling by, it was either visually 

selected or there was some sort of obvious defect. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So if we had more personnel and we were able to 

inspect more trucks, do you think that the out of service rate would 

remain the same or perhaps would drop, because these are the 

trucks with the most obvious defects? 

Mr. ROGERS. It would either remain the same, sir, or we feel that 

it would decrease somewhat. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Okay. But still, that could mean a lot of trucks 

that would be placed out of service who weren’t driving around? 

Mr. ROGERS. That is correct, yes, sir. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. So that is a concern. 

I don’t think I have any other questions. Mrs. Miller? 

Mrs. MILLER OF MICHIGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just tell you sincerely how much I appreciate your calling 

this Committee hearing, because this is such an important issue. 

I appreciate the panel, the second panel, all of you coming again 

and sitting through what has been a very lengthy Subcommittee 

hearing here today, particular Mr. Hoffa, from the great State of 

Michigan. 

After almost three and a half hours of listening, almost without 

exception, every member on both sides has expressed consternation 

about this program, what a problem it is going to be. I think it is 

52

well documented by the testimony of all of you and the panel before 

you, in some cases, about the problems. This is really just a problem that is waiting to happen. 

I don’t know what other question I can even ask of you. I have 

no question in my mind that this is a bad situation. I would respectfully suggest, I would like to start turning from questions and 

think about an action plan on how the Congress could actually stop 

this. I have been sort of sitting here noodling about what we can—

I cannot believe we can’t do anything about this. I do understand 

it is a manifestation of NAFTA. I do understand about the court 

case, et cetera. 

But perhaps, Mr. Chairman, if I could respectfully suggest, just 

something I have been thinking about, that this Subcommittee or 

the full Committee would send a letter to the appropriators, asking 

to have the funding for this particular pilot program denied. That 

would be a way perhaps for us to stop it. I am going to continue 

to try to think of other avenues that we may be able to take as a 

Congress to stop what I think, as I say, is just a huge, huge problem waiting to happen. 

As I mentioned, before I came to the Congress, being the chief 

motor administrator in my State, I have worked with Mr. Hoffa 

and other trucking groups with the rodeos, the trucking rodeos, 

and we were so proud of our safety record and the kinds of things 

that we have tried to do in our State and across the Nation, in 

thinking about what the potential is here. I was the Chairman of 

the Michigan Safety Traffic Commission for seven years. 

So I appreciate all the information that I am hearing here today. 

What I am saying now is somehow we have to develop an action 

plan of actually trying to stop this pilot program before any damage is accrued to our Nation. That would be a suggestion that I 

would lay out on the table and I will be thinking of other avenues 

that might be appropriate as well. 

Again, I want to thank the panelists, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I thank the gentlelady. I actually had a brief opportunity to approach Chairman Oberstar while we were voting on 

the Floor and I expressed the same concern to him. I thought that 

there was strong bipartisan concern that we needed to take action, 

that we were not confident that the program, which is dependent 

upon the good offices of officials in Mexico and paper keeping, 

record keeping by these Mexican trucking companies, was a sufficient measure to assure that these trucks and drivers would be 

safe when they come across the border into the U.S. 

So I agree with you on that, and would like to, I intend to first 

challenge their premise that they are exempt from the law regrading pilot problems. It is highly unusual, in the least, and Ms. 

Gillan, you might address this, since you are a watchdog safety advocate. I am not aware of any other program of this magnitude 

which did not go through a rulemaking process with some notice 

in the Federal Register, which would be required, as I see it, under 

TEA-21. 

Ms. GILLAN. You are absolutely right. I think it is interesting 

that we gave similar testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee, where we challenged them about this pilot program. And 

53

now they have changed the nomenclature to call it a demonstration 

project. So I think that sort of says it all right there, that they are 

trying to wiggle out from under that requirement also. 

And the fact of the matter is, if you also read Section 350, even 

though they have excluded trucks transporting hazardous materials and buses, the language is very clear that no vehicle shall 

cross the border until all the requirements of Section 350 have 

been met. And they haven’t been. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Anybody else have an opinion on that? 

Mr. HOFFA. I would think that somehow Congress could deny 

funding for this. Perhaps that is the way to do it, to notify this Department and go to the Appropriations Committee and say that 

there is broad bipartisan concern about this program and that we 

will not fund it. And when funding does come up, it would be found 

out and stopped. 

Now, I know it is a big, amorphous budget and it is hard to find 

the money in it. But at least that type of directive might be something that would be a way to de-fund this particular project. I have 

heard that has been done other ways, other times. So may de-funding it or not funding is a possible way to do it. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. I am sorry, I didn’t notice, we do have another 

member of the Committee. I was so focused straight ahead here. 

In response to that, the problem of course is that the giant Continuing Resolution would have extended funding through next October for this particular program, in all probability, since we didn’t 

earmark anything and we left great discretion to the agencies. So 

something, it seems to me, a limitation amendment is certainly 

something that we can offer, if our colleagues on Appropriations 

would see fit. But that would only apply to the next fiscal year, 

which would mean we would still have the program between May 

and October, at least. So I am going to look for something that we 

might be able to do a bit more immediately. 

Mrs. Napolitano, I apologize. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. That is okay, you are on a roll. 

To Mr. Rogers, do you check with the courts to see the percentage of citations that are complied with in regard to appearing in 

court, correction of defects and paying of any fines? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am, we do. Roughly about 80 percent of the 

citations that we write are complied with within the terms of the 

citation. That leaves the remaining 20 percent that result in warrants for the arrest of the driver. Then we have those warrants in 

file. Should we interact with the driver, we would serve those warrants and arrest that driver. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But do you do that at the border? Because if 

they come in, do you have the ability to identify those warrant violators? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. You do, okay. Do you by any chance speak to 

the other border highway patrol or other law enforcement agencies 

to share comments? Do you meet and discuss this issue? 

Mr. ROGERS. No, ma’am. It is not a regularly scheduled meeting 

between the four border States. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Don’t you think it might prove advantageous 

to be sharing information? 

54

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am. The more information you have, the 

more sound decisions you can make. But it is has not been something that has ever been put in place. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, maybe we should suggest to the four 

border States that they discuss the issue. Because it will affect the 

safety of the people that you guard. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you. 

To President Hoffa, have you worked at all, have you had any 

dialogue with the Mexican labor unions in regard to this issue? 

Mr. HOFFA. We have not. We know some of the people down 

there. But on this issue, they haven’t approached us nor have we 

approached them. We should probably do that. But they are very, 

very weak with regard to these issues. And there are thousands 

and thousands of independent truck drivers that don’t belong to the 

unions. Unions there are relatively weak, and they do not have enforcement power. 

When people come across the border, they don’t belong to unions. 

The number of people belonging to the transportation union is so 

small, that it really wouldn’t cover and they wouldn’t have any jurisdiction over this. Now, maybe they could speak out, that is something they could do. We could talk to them about that. 

But as far as the individual drivers, they really are not union 

members. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I understand that. But if they were able to 

maybe suggest a way of being able to be more effective in providing 

safety safeguards. 

Mr. HOFFA. Well, as I said in my testimony, it has been 15 years. 

One of the things I like to point out is that when NAFTA was 

passed in 1993, the United States actually had a trade surplus 

with Mexico. Today we have a $68 billion trade deficit with Mexico. 

So we know what is going on with Mexico, everything is coming out 

and very little going in. There is a huge trade deficit with Mexico. 

You would think that with all that revenue and all that time, that 

they would have addressed these issues. I agree, if the unions could 

speak out, that would be good. But it really is a Government issue 

to bring up. And you would think they would want to bring up 

their standards to our level, so they could be true partners in 

NAFTA. And I think they have failed that mission. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. I agree with you, because I know that prior 

to NAFTA, I was not here during passage of that agreement, it did 

not encompass some of the safeguards that would be necessary. 

This is one of the reasons why I am totally against some of these 

trade agreements that don’t protect our general public in the 

United States. We seem to be able to give carte blanche, if you will, 

in some areas, without understanding that what we are doing is 

tying the hands of our law enforcement and of our other agencies 

to be able to protect the United States, not only the business, but 

the public safety of the people. 

We talked about the issue of being able to have a truck driver 

deliver, say, to New York and go back empty. Do you think that 

happens, or do they pick up loads and take back? 

Mr. HOFFA. It is hard to imagine that a Mexican truck driver 

who was interested in making money and feeding his family, he is 

55

going to find a way to make money. That is the issue of cabotage, 

that they are not going to go back empty, they are going to find 

something to take back, they are going to find some way to stop. 

There is always a network of people that say, if you stop here you 

can pick up something. 

And I think that is something that the people from the Administration really have no answers for. They had no way to police the 

people in, when we all know about people coming to this Country, 

they say they are going to be a student, they get a visa, they come 

here, they disappear into the system. No one can find these people. 

And if that is true, we can’t find people who come to our Country 

who have a visa and disappear, how are we going to find these people? 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But Mr. Hoffa, on the way back, they have to 

cross our border. Do we not at that border find out if they are going 

empty or are they carrying materials and are they qualified or allowed to be able to carry it back into Mexico? Because they have 

to go through our border. 

Mr. HOFFA. I didn’t hear any testimony on that, and I wonder 

what kind of documentation they have. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Well, maybe that is something we need to go 

into. 

Mr. Chair, there are a couple of other things I would like to 

cover. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Go ahead. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Suggestion, panel? Any one of you. What do 

you suggest we need to do. And I heard you about the appropriation, withdraw the funding or the cutting of funds to be able to do 

that. But what other suggestions would you have to be able to 

begin imposing upon this Administration the necessity of being 

more careful on what we do on this specific issue? Because it will 

affect our people and our safety. 

Mr. HOFFA. Well, the problem, and I have been critical of this 

Administration, they never saw a trade agreement they didn’t like. 

Every trade agreement they make, whether it is Peru, whether it 

is Panama, whether it is Colombia, one trade agreement after another, CAFTA, NAFTA, on and on and on. Every one of them results in a massive trade deficit. Every one of these agreements 

ends up with a trade deficit. I would like to see one that works, 

or maybe it was equal. 

The answer is, we have to make sure that there is an equality. 

If you are going to sell your goods to us, we have to be able to sell 

our goods to you. And with regard to what we are talking about 

today, one of the Congressman said, I would like to see it on the 

fact that if we are going to have 10 trucks going over the border 

into the United States, we will have 10 American trucks going over 

there. Some type of equality with regard to trade, some type of 

equality with regard to services. To me that makes sense, so that 

we have some idea that this is a fair deal. We want fair trade. No 

one wants to build a wall around America. But we realize that we 

have to have fair trade. And we do not have that today. It is a one 

way street with a $68 billion trade deficit. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. So what would be the answer? 

56

Mr. HOFFA. The answer is we should rewrite NAFTA, is one of 

the things we should do. We should rewrite all these trade agreements to make sure we have protections for our borders, to make 

sure we preserve our sovereignty. Many of these agreements say 

that we lose our sovereignty, that we cannot have a law that is 

contrary to what they have in Mexico, we can’t enforce those laws. 

We have seen tests with regard to environmental issues. We have 

to make sure that we protect what we have in the United States, 

so we keep high standards as opposed to going to low standards. 

And that is the issue here with regard to highway safety, that 

we know that our standards are up here, and we believe that the 

standards in Mexico are down here. Until they meet our standards, 

they should not be able to come across our border. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. They have been attempting to improve the 

standards. That I know for a fact. They have not been able to improve them to the standards that we keep raising, because we do 

keep raising our standards to protect our folks. It is something that 

we need to go at. 

Ms. Gillan? 

Ms. GILLAN. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety comes at it 

from a little bit different perspective, because we did not take a position on NAFTA. We are a coalition of consumer health, safety and 

insurance companies. We had many of our consumer board members who opposed NAFTA and our insurance members supported 

NAFTA. However, we are completely in agreement that NAFTA 

should not degrade the safety of the American public. That is why 

I am here testifying, saying that the border is not ready to be 

opened. You have heard all the different issues. You could have a 

driver from the central part of Mexico drive 12, 14 hours, get to the 

border and still have 11 hours that they can drive. And fatigue is 

a major problem. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. And the answer? 

Ms. GILLAN. And the answer is, I think we need to get some legislation passed to stop this pilot program from going through. The 

Administration says they want to move it in 60 days. That doesn’t 

give us a lot of time and they are not going to correct these problems with 60 days. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Major? 

Mr. ROGERS. Ma’am, unfortunately, as a State employee I can’t 

offer any advice as to pro or con against any piece of legislation. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But given your findings, given the impact it 

has, would you want to have a budget to be able to help you do 

better enforcement? 

Mr. ROGERS. At present, ma’am, the budget that is provided to 

us by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is quite 

adequate to do our enforcement program. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. It is? 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am. They provide us with about $24 million 

each fiscal year, which is very adequate for our enforcement. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Okay, then the question, sir, would be, if they 

go ahead and work through this pilot, this demonstration project, 

what would be the impact on your ability to be able to do the job? 

57

Mr. ROGERS. It would really be insignificant. We already have 3 

million trucks crossing a year in Texas. So a few more will really 

not have an impact on us. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. But can you tell me if there is any real impact 

on the communities themselves? I was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. I can tell you, I grew up in that area. To see a mile 

long of trucks waiting to cross is not necessarily what I remember 

of my home town. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, ma’am. We are not the ones that create the 

backlog. That is when they actually cross the border and interact 

with Customs and Border Protection. Basically, if you are not selected for inspection inside our facilities, you move through in just 

a few seconds. So we really don’t impede that process. The lines 

occur when you are waiting to clear in Customs and Border Protection. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. GILLAN. Could I just add something? I just spent this weekend met a police officer from Fort Worth, and he was mentioning 

to me, I think it is an issue no one has even focused on, the Federal 

money for truck inspections goes to the State. But we haven’t even 

thought about the burden is going to be on local police, that once 

these trucks go out, leave the border zones and travel throughout 

the United States, those police are also going to be charged with 

enforcing trucks, if they see a truck that is unsafe or a driver that 

is fatigued. Nobody has even thought about the additional burdens 

on local police when they have to start enforcing these truck safety 

laws. 

Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Mr. Chair, with your indulgence, because I sat 

on transportation for six years in California, and the Highway Patrol, which deals with not just—they deal all over—what is specific 

to that issue is the safety, the upkeep, the maintenance, the driver’s license, the placarding, safety factor in the normal, if the person had slept, the logs, all of that came into play. As I say, it hasn’t 

changed much. There are still the same questions, as to whether 

or not we are going to be allowing the truck drivers to operate 

under the same premise that they operate in Mexico, with a few 

adjustments, but not enough to be able to provide the law enforcement the ability to determine whether or not they are safe to drive 

on our streets and our highways. 

Thank you, ma’am. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Ms. Napolitano. 

I want to thank the panel members for their time and their testimony. I think you can see with perhaps one exception there is 

broad concern on this Committee on a bipartisan basis about the 

potential problems with this program. We are going to do the best 

we can, I am going to begin to try and formulate a strategy to push 

back on the Administration here. We are not confident that they 

have reached the point at all where they can assure us that these 

trucks coming across the border are going to be as safe as American trucks, and even within our own industry in our Country we 

have problems. So to bring in yet another pool that pulls down the 

overall safety is not, certainly not desirable. 

Thanks again for your time and your testimony. The Committee 

is now adjourned. 

58

[Whereupon, at 4:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

59


34787.014
60


34787.015
61


34787.016
62


34787.017
63


34787.018
64


34787.019
65


34787.020
66


34787.021
67


34787.022
68


34787.023
69


34787.024
70


34787.025
71


34787.026
72


34787.027
73


34787.028
74


34787.029
75


34787.030
76


34787.031
77


34787.032
78


34787.033
79


34787.034
80


34787.035
81


34787.036
82


34787.037
83


34787.038
84


34787.039
85


34787.040
86


34787.041
87


34787.042
88


34787.043
89


34787.044
90


34787.045
91


34787.046
92


34787.047
93


34787.048
94


34787.049
95


34787.050
96


34787.051
97


34787.052
98


34787.053
99


34787.054
100


34787.055
101


34787.056
102


34787.057
103


34787.058
104


34787.059
105


34787.060
106


34787.061
107


34787.062
108


34787.063
109


34787.064
110


34787.065
111


34787.066
112


34787.067
113


34787.068
114


34787.069
115


34787.070
116


34787.071
117


34787.072
118


34787.073
119


34787.074
120


34787.075
121


34787.076
122


34787.077
123


34787.078
124


34787.079
125


34787.080
126


34787.081
127


34787.082
128


34787.083
129


34787.084
130


34787.085
131


34787.086
132


34787.087
133


34787.088
134


34787.089
135


34787.090
136


34787.091
137


34787.092
138


34787.093
139


34787.094
140


34787.095
141


34787.096
142


34787.097
143


34787.098
144


34787.099
145


34787.100
146


34787.101
147


34787.102
148


34787.103
149


34787.104
150


34787.105
151


34787.106
152


34787.107
153


34787.108
154


34787.109
155


34787.110
156


34787.111
157


34787.112
158


34787.113
159


34787.114
160


34787.115
161


34787.116
162


34787.117
163


34787.118
164


34787.119
165


34787.120
166


34787.121
167


34787.122
168


34787.123
169


34787.124
170


34787.125
171


34787.126
172


34787.127
173


34787.128
174


34787.129
175


34787.130
176


34787.131
177


34787.132
178


34787.133
179


34787.134
180


34787.135
181


34787.136
182


34787.137
183


34787.138
184


34787.139
185


34787.140
186


34787.141
187


34787.142
188


34787.143
189


34787.144
190


34787.145
191


34787.146
192


34787.147
193


34787.148
194


34787.149
195


34787.150
196


34787.151
197


34787.152
198


34787.153
199


34787.154
200


34787.155
201


34787.156
202


34787.157
203


34787.158
204


34787.159
205


34787.160
206


34787.161
207


34787.162
208


34787.163
209


34787.164
210


34787.165
211


34787.166
212


34787.167
213


34787.168
214


34787.169
215


34787.170
216


34787.171
217


34787.172
218


34787.173
219


34787.174
220


34787.175
221


34787.176
222


34787.177
223


34787.178
224


34787.179
225


34787.180
226


34787.181
227


34787.182
228


34787.183
229


34787.184
230


34787.185
231


34787.186
232


34787.187
233


34787.188
234


34787.189
235


34787.190
236


34787.191
237


34787.192
238


34787.193
239


34787.194
240


34787.195
241


34787.196
242


34787.197
243


34787.198
244


34787.199
245


34787.200
246


34787.201
247


34787.202
248


34787.203
249


34787.204
250


34787.205
251


34787.206
252


34787.207
253


34787.208
254


34787.209
255


34787.210
256


34787.211
257


34787.212
258


34787.213
259


34787.214
260


34787.215
261


34787.216
262


34787.217
263


34787.218
264


34787.219
265


34787.220
266


34787.221
267


34787.222
268


34787.223
269


34787.224
270


34787.225
271


34787.226
272


34787.227
273


34787.228
274


34787.229
275


34787.230
276


34787.231
277


34787.232
278


34787.233
279


34787.234
280


34787.235
281


34787.236
282


34787.237
283


34787.238
284


34787.239
285


34787.240
286


34787.241
287


34787.242
288


34787.243
289


34787.244
290


34787.245
291


34787.246
292


34787.247
293


34787.248
294


34787.249
295


34787.250
296


34787.251
297


34787.252
298


34787.253
299


34787.254
300


34787.255
301


34787.256
302


34787.257
303


34787.258
304


34787.259
305


34787.260
306


34787.261
307


34787.262
308


34787.263
309


34787.264
310


34787.265
311


34787.266
312


34787.267
313


34787.268
314


34787.269
315


34787.270
316


34787.271
317


34787.272
318


34787.273
319


34787.274
320


34787.275
321


34787.276
322


34787.277
323


34787.278
324


34787.279
325


34787.280
326


34787.281
327

Æ


34787.282