[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 27343-27346]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRUCKS COMING IN FROM MEXICO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Murphy of Connecticut). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from 
Kansas (Mrs. Boyda) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to speak on behalf 
of so many in the 2nd District of Kansas who are as concerned as I am 
about what's happening with the trucks coming in from Mexico.
  I have stood strong and said from the beginning what on Earth are we 
doing here. We have a rule of law in this country, and some way or 
another it is once again being completely disregarded, the will of the 
American people, the rule of law, and I stand before you here tonight 
to say the people of the 2nd District want me to say something, and 
that is, enough is enough.
  My Safe American Roads Act basically said this pilot program is not 
going to keep our families safe. It, in fact, will make our highways 
more dangerous, and asks the President, please, Mr. President, stop 
this program now.
  We had a bill that was voted on this very floor right here, 411-3, 
virtually unanimously, and yet on Labor Day weekend, just a stunning, a 
stunning reversal of what the American people had asked our President, 
on Labor Day weekend it was announced that these trucks coming up from 
Mexico would be allowed that weekend, and in fact, the first trucks 
started to roll.
  Tonight we want to talk about what's going on and why we are so 
concerned, and I'm joined here with my friend and colleague Mr. Ryan 
from Ohio, and I will just turn it over to you for a few minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that, and I appreciate 
all your work on this particular piece of legislation that we have a 
lot more work to do convincing our friends on the other side of the 
Capitol to act on this.
  But what I find interesting is we're just standing here. You're from 
Kansas; I'm from Ohio. This is not a border State issue where we're 
directly across the border from Mexico. This is an issue that affects 
all of us all across the country. So, whether it's manufacturing in my 
district or, you know, in someone else's district across the country, 
this is an issue, as you said, that represents America.
  We sign a lot of these trade agreements, and many people don't even 
know what's in the fine print, and here we find out 15 years later 
about this little program that's going to go on that really, I think, 
does several things.
  One, it's a real threat to U.S. jobs in the trucking industry. And 
then as your bill pointed out, why it is, I think, such an important 
piece of legislation, and Mr. Speaker, this is the Safe American Roads 
Act of 2007, H.R. 1773, sponsored, pushed, advocated for by the 
gentlelady from Kansas who's been such a strong advocate on this issue. 
But basically, what we're trying to do from our vantage point is put 
some responsibility into this thing, to make sure that there are 
certain standards that are met.
  And I know that was the key impetus for this whole piece of 
legislation from the beginning is let's have some standards, Mr. 
Speaker, where if you want to compete in the global economy, we're all 
playing by the same rules.
  Now, all of the sudden we have American truckers who have drug 
testing and there are certain standards for the trucks and certain 
training that needs to happen and equipment and on and on and on down 
the line. Now, all of the sudden they're going to be competing with 
folks who just don't have to abide by the same rules.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. I know a lot of good people are concerned about 
their jobs.
  Our trucking industry, while I'm sure you've heard the same thing as 
well, as of January I had to put on some pretty strict environmental 
controls, and they did it. They went out and spent the money. They 
maintain their

[[Page 27344]]

trucks. They keep them up to standard, so that when you and I are out 
there with our families, we don't have to breathe as much smog and we 
know that trucks that are out there are, in fact, safe.
  Those men and women who have purchased those trucks at great expense 
are now going, What did I do that for? Why is it that I'm required to 
meet a standard and yet our companions to the south are not, in fact, 
required to do that? Something is just definitely awry here, and the 
American people have stood up and said enough is enough.
  Let me make this real clear. This is not a partisan issue, Mr. 
Speaker. We both happen to represent the heartland, but this is an 
issue that speaks across not only party lines but across our geographic 
districts and speaks to people up and down the United States.
  What the Safe American Roads Act basically did was say NAFTA provided 
for a pilot program, but it said there had to be some standards, let's 
have some standards here, and there had to be a public comment period. 
Well, we have a grade card here, and I'd like to pull that up for a 
minute.
  Mr. Speaker, here is that grade card. First of all, it said that we 
had to have a public comment period. Now, traditionally, the minimum 
comment period is 30 days. Did this get 30 days? No. On June 8, after 
the Safe American Roads Act was passed, on June 8 there was an 
announcement that, by the way, all the safety standards had now been 
met. A simple statement, by the way, they've been met. I compare that 
to, you know, giving a third-grader 5 hours of homework and 5 minutes 
later they're running out the door saying, I got it done.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, that's kind of like the President during 
Katrina; he flies in. He says, Hey, you're doing a great job, Brownie. 
Well, maybe you should look and see what he did before you start making 
the comments. So there's a little bit of a pattern that this 
administration may have.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. I would absolutely agree with that.
  So on June 8, the statement was made, yeah, good job, all the safety 
standards have been met, and the public comment period is starting. 
That was June 8. It was over on June 28, 20 calendar days, 10 short of 
what's considered to be the very minimum. You know, it was just a slap 
in the face of the American people.
  Basically, it said that you had to comply with the rules that are 
already out there. We have section 350 of the FMCA, the Federal Motor 
Carrier Safety Act; you can't bring this new pilot program in until you 
at least meet those requirements. Well, the fact is that they have not 
met those requirements either. That has to do with bus inspections. 
This makes a difference. These aren't just petty little infringements. 
This is real big business here. Bus inspection facilities still have 
not been met. Hazardous materials transportation, still we have an F 
here.
  How about keeping the promise of inspecting every truck every time? 
Well, I think as we noted tomorrow, the Secretary of Transportation is 
having a press conference with the Secretary of Transportation from 
Mexico. They're going to be having a press event. Oh, did I say ``press 
event''? I meant they're going to be doing inspections, I'm sorry. 
They're going to be doing inspections. They're going to inspect one 
truck from Mexico and one truck from the United States.
  Now, I don't know how you feel about that, but I am not convinced 
that we take a look at one truck and then deem the whole program safe, 
and I am deeply concerned again that we are heading in a direction that 
it's going to be harder and harder and harder to pull back on this 
thing.
  We all know once it's out of the door, once the horse is out of the 
barn, it's harder and harder to pull this back, and they're just going 
off in a direction, again that's clearly, clearly opposite the will of 
the American people.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And it makes our roads less safe. I mean, that's 
why you're here. That's why I'm here. We care about jobs. We care about 
economic development. We care about all these things, as we'll continue 
to talk about tonight, Mr. Speaker, but the bottom line is this. We 
have unsafe trucks that will be coming in that are now through the 
pilot program, will continue to come into our country, lack inspection, 
lack the safety standards that we're accustomed to in the United 
States. That puts those kids who are riding in cars in the other lane, 
or in front or behind or whatever the case may be, in jeopardy. We have 
certain standards in the United States.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. So when you first started learning about this, 
I'm sure you thought the same that I did. Certainly, maybe we're just 
overreacting, maybe there are standards there, and those standards are 
being met and we shouldn't worry. Then you come to find out that they 
don't even have drug testing facilities. They don't even have drug 
testing facilities in which to perform these. The whole recordkeeping, 
the hours of service is just extremely worrisome. There's no way to 
even begin to verify that when someone comes across the border, we 
don't know how many hours of service that they've had already.
  So this is not even an attempt to meaningfully enforce these laws, 
and they will tell you that, in fact, these systems are not put in 
place, the same standards that we have, we've come to expect in this 
country, training, recordkeeping, sleep, drug testing.
  And certainly if we're going to talk about drugs, I don't know about 
in your area, but in mine, we are finally getting the meth labs in the 
rural parts of my district, we're getting those under control, only to 
have huge meth shipments coming in from where? From Mexico. And this, 
again, will just exacerbate that situation and make it harder and 
harder and harder to control the influx of drugs into this country.
  This is not a partisan issue. This is not anything that is being done 
politically.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Look at the vote on your bill, 411-3.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. Don't you wonder who the three were?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I bet I could guess, but I won't comment on that.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. You just have to wonder who said no, and then 
it went to the Senate, and the Senate basically said we'll take 
something and we'll put it into the supplemental bill. And it also, of 
course, then passed as well.
  And again, we now have a law that's, in fact, in force today as we 
speak, and it's very difficult in my district to ask people to believe 
that there's any real meaning when it comes to enforcement of these 
laws.
  And it's one of the real outrages in my district is with immigration, 
and that's why it all comes together in saying this is yet another law 
that they're not even trying to enforce it.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You brought up the immigration issue, and I think 
it's important is we have put through the homeland security bill and a 
variety of other bills, more border patrol on the border, Mr. Speaker. 
We're trying to continue to try to make sure that people who come into 
this country come in legally, and that is a major issue.
  But because the resources that we are trying to provide are going 
down to the border to try to prevent illegal immigration, at the same 
time we do not have the resources to provide the kind of oversight and 
to make the kind of investments given the history of corruption in many 
of the industries and in the Mexican Government that lack oversight.
  So here we are saying, well, we're going to let you come into our 
country, but they are not providing the oversight. We don't have the 
money to provide the oversight with the budget deficits that we're 
running now. So this is a critical, critical issue.
  And like I think most issues of globalization, things happen too 
quickly, where the infrastructure is not in place in many countries for 
labor, for health, for the kind of protections that we want.
  We like having our truckers in safe trucks. We like knowing they've 
got the proper amount of sleep. We like knowing the proper 
environmental advances are going to be made so the air is cleaner. 
Those are good things. I like

[[Page 27345]]

clean air and clean water. I don't think I'm really out on a limb on 
this one.
  But what we are saying is, if you want to do business in our country, 
you have got to come up to our standards. And for too long, we've been 
dropping ours to meet everybody else's, especially wages, which is a 
whole other Special Order that we could talk about.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. Another Special Order on food safety and 
different standards of food. We have standards for food in this 
country.

                              {time}  2115

  But we bring in food that doesn't even meet our own standards. Now, 
tell me if that makes any sense. Is it safer to eat something that 
comes in from someplace else? It is just that the hypocrisy here is 
becoming, I think, very, very clear to the American people, Mr. 
Speaker. They have had enough. They are speaking up and telling us they 
want change.
  One thing that concerns me, too, and especially with what is going on 
tomorrow. There is going to be one truck from America and one truck 
from Mexico that is going to be inspected. Now, my background is in the 
pharmaceutical industry. I was in the research and development side. 
When we did studies, you can believe how much time went into that 
protocol to say is this going to be safe and effective. Those same 
kinds of standards apply to this very project right here. So if we are 
going to do this pilot program, certainly there must have been some 
kind of a protocol put together that says, here is how we are going to 
study this, and at the end here is how we are going to know if in fact 
we have the data, we have collected the data to tell us if we are now 
safe. There hasn't been anything that has been done in that regard, 
that hasn't been looked at as is this a statistically significant 
sample? Are we testing it? Is it rigorous?
  When we are done with this, really there is one of two things that 
can happen a year from now when this pilot program is finished. We will 
have had 500 trucks on the road for a year. And if there is no 
incident, will we know at that time do we just open up the borders? 
Now, let me tell you that I would rather that there is not an incident 
with those 500 trucks, but the fact of looking at 500 trucks, you could 
keep an eye on each one of those individually for one year, this isn't 
difficult. At the end of the year, are they going to tell us, if there 
isn't any problem that it is now safe and we have demonstrated that 
this has been a pilot program? That is kind of like saying we are going 
to give a drug to 500 people, and if nobody dies on it, let's put it 
out to the American people and market it. Now, that is not the way I 
did business and certainly not the way the pharmaceutical industry 
would even want to do business, but legally would not be allowed to, 
but they wouldn't want to do it that way.
  Why is it that we are taking a small sample that we know probably is 
going to be handpicked and watched closely for a year, and then use 
that to determine what goes on?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Without having this system in the infrastructure in 
place to say that every truck in the future that is going to go on the 
road, this is just maybe fixing up trucks and picking the right people 
to make sure you get the right results.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. It is called cherry-picking where I come from.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It is called cherry-picking, and you are getting 
the results. But at the end of the day, you don't have a system in 
place in the Mexican domestic government, the civilian side, to monitor 
this to say that every truck that comes through or at least minimize. 
Now, we have truck accidents in this country. You are probably never 
going to be able to eliminate all of it. But, at the same time, we have 
these strict enforcement mechanisms. And we all deal with trucking 
companies in our district; they have got to go through a lot, logging 
miles and hours and sleep.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. It is disciplined.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And it is a tedious task. People can make a few 
bucks doing it, I have noticed, but at the same time it is very 
rigorous. But at the end of the day, we decided as a country we would 
rather have safer roads. These trucking companies do not want the 
insurance payments if they would cause an accident, so they are 
inclined to abide by it. So all we are saying is let's lift everybody 
up and let's all play by the same rules, and we would be happy to do 
business with you.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. It seems like it should make sense. In the 
State of Kansas, I don't know in Ohio but in the State of Kansas we do 
triples. Do you do triples, triple trailers? We do triple trailers 
across Kansas. One truck pulls three trailers. And I don't mind saying, 
as a mom, when you have got kids in the back seat, it is unnerving. 
Now, I have come to understand that triple trailers in fact are safe 
and there is data out there to prove that in fact they are safe, but I 
don't mind saying it is unnerving.
  The concept that we would be doing triple trailers, I would assume 
that if triple trailers are allowed, then Mexican triple trailers are 
going to be allowed across Kansas. I am telling you, I don't think many 
people in Kansas are going to sit still very long. So are we saying 
that our own truckers then should start to dummy down their standards, 
that they shouldn't be able to do things because these other trucks are 
coming in and they might not be as safe?
  Actually, when my kids were small and they were in that back seat and 
we were traveling across I-70, we went from Kansas across to St. Louis, 
Missouri, across I-70, I am sure fathers as well as mothers just have 
that sense of dread when you are so close to those big trucks. And, 
unfortunately, there are accidents. I can't imagine driving my 
grandkids now across I-70, wondering if these trucks are going to be 
safe.
  We had a news conference, Mr. Speaker, about a month, maybe 3 weeks, 
ago and this woman I thought was incredibly brave. She told the story 
that was an absolute, it was literally tear jerking. She had just 
gotten married on her parents' 45th wedding anniversary. They were so 
very close. And to make a long story short, not long after she was 
married, her parents were in their car going down the highway in 
California with her nephew when the drive train fell out of the car. 
Needless to say, what happened after that was just, you couldn't even 
describe. And she was so brave. And this truck was from Mexico; and she 
said not only had they lived through this terrible, and of course 
wondering what her parents' last moments were like and the terror that 
resulted from it, but then the legal nightmare.
  Mr. Speaker, trying to find the driver and trying to find the 
company, trying to find anybody who could give them information about, 
first of all, what had happened, who owned this truck, who was this 
person. And obviously the truck driver lived; her mom and dad of course 
did not. Getting any kind of compensation has been a nightmare.
  Now, again, we are taking a fairly small, limited sample. And I am 
sure that we both agree that within this first year we both want this 
first year to be completely accident free. We should all want that. But 
what is it going to tell us if it is accident free? What knowledge are 
we going to have gained 12 months from now if it has been accident 
free?
  This is what concerns me, that they take the entire program, put a 
great big Good Housekeeping stamp of approval on it and call it good 
and open it up. And then we are going to see what really happens.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And the concern for a lot of us is that this 
administration does not really have a very good track record of being 
open and honest with the Congress through a variety of issues. We go 
all the way across the board from the Iraq war, whether you were for it 
or against it or wherever you ended up; the actual execution of unbid 
contracts and lack of oversight and not getting the kinds of answers we 
need.
  Katrina, we have the same kind of deal. The President goes down, Mr. 
Speaker, and says everything is doing great. Good job, Brownie, we are 
doing

[[Page 27346]]

everything we can. Then you find out over the course of several days, 
several weeks, several years that it wasn't going well at all. There 
was no infrastructure in place; there was no civil coordination. We had 
all kinds of problems.
  And I think it is so important that the gentlewoman, Mr. Speaker, 
from Kansas has brought this issue to the Congress and made it a 
priority, not only for her but for the whole Congress, passing 
legislation with 410 other Members other than herself, is that we need 
to make sure that, if we do it, we do it right and we get it done, and 
we make sure that we have the safety standards in place, the drug 
testing, the sleep, the caps, the traditional safety standards that we 
have here, Mr. Speaker.
  This is important stuff. And it can't be you say one thing today, and 
we find out a year later that it is not going as well; everybody 
passes, we completely implement the program, and we find out a year 
later. Now we have 5,000 trucks on the road coming from Mexico, and 
none of them are safe, or 50 percent of them are safe. That is too 
risky for I think our tastes.
  So it is important that we continue to push the other side of the 
Capitol to pass this piece of legislation, talk to our Senators, talk 
to the people we work with to get this thing done. This is important 
for the American people, a priority for you, a priority for me, and a 
lot of our other colleagues to the tune of 411 of us. We can't agree on 
anything with 411 people, but we agree on this issue.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. Absolutely. I think that really speaks for it. 
In July, what, 114 Members in the House also signed an urgent, urgent 
letter to the President, Mr. Speaker, just calling on him to stop this 
pilot program until these safety concerns were met.
  Is this about jobs? Sure. Is it about safety? Absolutely. And 
ultimately that is why I had to stand up and say something. This is 
about safety, and 114 Members of this House right here, absolutely 
bipartisan, wrote a letter to the President imploring that he stop this 
program before it gets started.
  And so in the House we have passed the Safe American Roads Act; we 
have signed on to some statements in the supplemental asking for the 
President, telling the President and/or law to stop this. We have 
written a letter. I am hoping that our colleagues in the Senate, 
certainly I am calling on my colleagues from Kansas, to stand up and to 
really get behind this issue very clearly, very forcefully, and impress 
in whatever way we can to influence the President of the United States, 
and to see that we bring this extremely ill conceived project to a 
halt. The horse has not left the barn, but it is getting ready to. Now, 
that is what we say in Kansas.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It has got the hoof out.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. We have lots of horses in Kansas. The horse has 
left the barn. It has not left the barn; it is getting ready to. And 
then we are going to hear that it is going to be impossible to pull 
back. And this is what we have to do, and it just cannot be allowed to 
go further.
  Some of the independent truckers in my district were so concerned 
because they knew that this pilot program was being discussed; and yet 
time after time they were told, no, don't worry about it, this is not 
going to happen.
  And I agree with you, Mr. Ryan, that just the issue of trust has so 
much to do with this right now. And I think the American people are 
just deeply offended that the President has said ``trust me'' one more 
time, and they are just not able to.
  This is not about race, it is not about Mexico, it is not about 
anything other than keeping our families safe when we get out on the 
road that we could be assured that every safety precaution, every 
reasonable safety precaution has been met, and that the force of law is 
behind it and the American people, their tax dollars are going to make 
sure that this is being enforced, and they can get out on the roads, 
take the kids to wherever they are going, over the river and through 
the woods, and know that they are going to be safe.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to in closing just say that hopefully, and I 
think this has, that there is a real move afoot in Congress, whether it 
is with your bill regarding transportation and Mexican trucking, Rosa 
DeLauro talking about food safety, toy safety coming in from China. 
There is a lot of movement coming in Congress to say, hey, we have got 
these standards here. We were one of the first countries to implement 
them. They were important to us. We like the standard of living that we 
have here, and we want to keep it moving. That is why I think this is 
such a key piece of legislation.
  So I am happy to support you and continue to talk about this and keep 
pushing.
  Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. I thank you very much. I think we both asked 
the American people to stand up and to make their voices heard. 
Everyone plays a part in our democracy. That is the beauty of our 
democracy.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I implore the good people of America to stand up and 
very clearly and forthrightly, respectfully of course, very 
respectfully, say that they cannot support this, nor can they support 
people who are unwilling to stand up and take a stand on this.
  With that, I thank my colleague from Ohio for joining me this 
evening, and I certainly am hoping that very, very soon we will have 
good news and this program will be put to rest.

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