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Court opens roads to mexican trucks { June 8 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/08/MNG7D72K131.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/08/MNG7D72K131.DTL
Court opens roads to Mexican trucks
Environmental impact study ruled legally pointless
- Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 8, 2004
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered U.S. highways opened to thousands of long-haul Mexican trucks Monday, rejecting demands by environmental groups and labor unions for a study of the aging diesels' impact on air pollution.
The unanimous ruling was a victory for the Bush administration and illustrated the power of trade treaties, like the North American Free Trade Agreement, to hurdle domestic legal barriers. A NAFTA panel's decision in 2001 that a continued U.S. ban on the trucks violated the treaty led to President Bush's decision in 2002 to approve entry of about 30,000 trucks a year.
Monday's ruling allows the trucks to enter at any time. A White House spokesman declined to specify a date.
They were originally scheduled to start arriving a year ago, but were held up by rulings by a federal judge and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco requiring an environmental review.
The review has begun and was to have been completed later this year, but can be ended now without public disclosure of its contents. The Supreme Court said the review is legally pointless because the agency conducting it -- a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation -- regulates vehicle safety, not emissions, and had no power to exclude the trucks after Bush ordered them admitted.
"The president has long been committed to opening the border while maintaining safety standards, adhering to environmental regulations and providing real opportunities for American workers, and we're pleased that that can now proceed,'' said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius.
He did not specify what environmental regulations Bush was following, since the ruling amounted to an exemption from environmental review.
Opponents were indignant.
"This is yet another example of how the Bush administration's approach to trade puts communities at risk and weakens our hard-won clean-air protections, '' said the Sierra Club's Stephen Mills.
"The court's decision will increase deadly particulate pollution and smog by allowing tens of thousands of dirty diesel trucks from Mexico to travel into communities in the U.S. already plagued by poor air quality,'' said Gail Ruderman Feuer, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office filed arguments for nine states opposing the administration's position, said the ruling could hurt California businesses, because the state will have to find other ways to reduce pollution and comply with federal air standards.
Although the court case and the post-ruling broadsides focused on the environment, the dispute over trucking was initially motivated by jobs. The Teamsters Union, which feared a loss of work to low-paid Mexican truckers, enlisted environmental allies for the legal fight after failing to block the Bush administration's plan in Congress.
Mexican trucks have been banned from U.S. roads since 1982, except for a zone of up to 20 miles north of the border, beyond which cargo must be transferred to U.S. trucks. According to the January 2003 appeals court ruling, 80 to 90 percent of the Mexican long-haul trucks were manufactured before 1994, the year that Mexican emissions standards first matched U.S. standards.
NAFTA, which took effect in 1994, provided for increased access by Mexican truckers, but President Bill Clinton refused to allow their trucks beyond the border zone, citing safety concerns. The Mexican government filed a legal complaint in 1998 and won a ruling from a multinational panel -- with Mexican, U.S. and British representatives -- in February of 2001 that exposed the United States to huge damages unless it lifted the ban.
Despite initial court victories, opponents had little expectation of keeping the trucks out for much longer, but they hoped that a court-ordered environmental study would protect smog-ridden cities like Houston and Los Angeles, where the trucks are expected in large numbers. Such studies must include measures to reduce environmental damage.
In last year's ruling ordering a full environmental review, the appeals court cited provisions of NAFTA that preserve U.S. environmental standards. The court said the Department of Transportation, which had found that its regulations for the trucks' entry would have no significant environmental effect, ignored studies showing diesel exhaust to be a threat to children's health.
But the Supreme Court said in Monday's ruling that the government's only obligation, under federal law, is to adopt safety rules for the trucks.
The Transportation Department branch that enacted those rules, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, "has no ability to countermand the president's lifting of the moratorium,'' wrote Justice Clarence Thomas.
He said a court-ordered environmental review -- which requires a government agency to disclose information about a project's possible harmful effects, solicit public comment and respond -- has no purpose when the agency lacks the power to order environmental safeguards.
With its limited authority, the safety agency "could not refuse to register Mexican motor carriers simply on the ground that their trucks would pollute excessively,'' Thomas said.
The case is Department of Transportation vs. Public Citizen, 03-358.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
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