REMARKS FOR
THE HONORABLE MARY PETERS
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
BORDER TRADE ALLIANCE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MARCH 1, 2007
12:30 PM
Good afternoon, everyone. And let me just start out with a big thank you! Art
Macias, I appreciate the kind introduction. And thank you to the Border Trade
Alliance for your steadfast support of efforts to promote the free flow of trade
across our borders.
It is great to be among people who understand that our country grows stronger
when our economic policies embrace the freedom that is America’s legacy to the
world.
The United States has never shied away from opportunities to compete, to open
new markets, and to trade with the world.
And last week, we advanced freedom another step with the announcement that
United States and Mexico are beginning a cross-border trucking demonstration
program. I am grateful to the Border Trade Alliance for its strong and early
support.
This is a very exciting time for all of us who appreciate the expanded freedom
and opportunity open trade is bringing to the North American continent.
Fourteen years after the United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to open our
mutual borders, we have seen lower prices and more choices for consumers,
expanded markets for businesses, and millions of jobs created in all three NAFTA
countries.
Nearly $2.2 billion in trade flows among our three countries on a daily basis.
Most of this cross-border trade – 75 percent – is carried by commercial trucks,
including thousands of Mexican trucks that arrive in the United States border
commercial zones each day. That is why lifting this remaining barrier is so
important.
Until now, these trucks have had to stop at artificially drawn lines about 25
miles inside our border. There, they sit and wait, sometimes idling for hours
until U.S. trucks arrive and switch the cargo – contributing to congestion and
pollution in the border communities.
Even worse, U.S. trucks cannot even go into Mexico.
This inefficient process can add hours, even days, to delivery times. It wastes
energy and it wastes money. And restricting the freedom of our businesses to
choose the best supplier – or their freedom to ship parts and products
efficiently – drives up the cost of goods and makes them less competitive.
A good illustration is an automaker I spoke with in Detroit in January. The
company has a plant in Mexico that manufactures engines. But getting them to
Detroit where they are put into its trucks requires lengthy transfers and layers
of delivery charges. There is a transfer from the Mexican long-haul carrier to
the short-haul carrier that takes them over the border, and then another switch
to the long-haul truck in the U.S. that carries the engines across the country
to the plant.
Now, that is about to change.
With safety and security programs in place, we are taking the trucking
provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement off hold. A limited,
one-year demonstration program will permit up to 100 Mexican trucking companies
to make deliveries beyond commercial zones at the border. It also will allow an
equal number of U.S. trucking companies to cross the border and compete directly
in Mexico for the first time ever.
While seizing commercial opportunities is important, doing it safely is vital.
And last week, I got a first-hand look at the safety regimes we have in place on
both sides of the border.
On Thursday, I joined my Mexican counterpart, Secretary of Communications and
Transportation Luis Téllez, in Monterrey.
There, we announced a new program that will enable truck safety inspectors
working for the Department’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to
conduct extensive safety audits in Mexico on companies that want to haul cargo
into and out of the United States, beyond the commercial zone.
We are in the process of scheduling visits by U.S. inspection teams to Mexico,
where they will check out Mexican trucking companies to ensure their trucks and
drivers meet the same safety, insurance, and licensing standards that apply to
all U.S. truckers. They will evaluate truck maintenance and driver testing for
compliance with U.S. requirements. I saw them at work in Monterrey. They are
tough, they are rigorous, and they are professional.
I also was quite impressed with the trucking company we visited, Transportes
Olympic or Olympic Transport. The owner showed us the trucks he plans to use for
cross-border transport – the oldest was built in 2003. Most of his fleet, in
fact, is made up of the exact same models that U.S. trucking companies use
today.
I also visited three of our border crossings – in El Paso, Nogales, and Otay
Mesa. Again, what I saw impressed me, beginning with the coordination between
the Department of Homeland Security and our agency.
There is no question that this is a tough inspection program, designed to ensure
safe and secure operation of trucks crossing our border.
It is being carried out at modern facilities with modern equipment.
Inside the bay, inspectors examine the trucks from hood to tail-lamps to make
sure they meet United States safety standards.
All told, 540 federal and state inspectors are already on the job. They are
standing by to screen trucks coming across the border from Mexico to ensure that
both the drivers and their vehicles are safe to make deliveries in the United
States.
Under our safety inspection plan, each and every truck in the demonstration
program will be checked, and any unsafe vehicle or unfit driver will be taken
off the road.
We expect it to take about 60 days for the initial safety audits to be done and
proof-of-insurance verified and special DOT numbers to be issued to each
long-haul truck in the program. Only then will the first Mexican trucks be
authorized under the pilot program to begin traveling beyond the border areas.
Through this new pilot program, we are finding a better way to do business with
one of this nation’s largest trading partners. In doing so, we are expanding
freedom and creating a more efficient border, and stronger border state
economies.
Border communities have demonstrated agility and great ability to innovate over
the last two decades during which Mexican trucking has operated exclusively in
the commercial zone.
We believe the future will be even brighter.
Communities in the border states will benefit from the stronger trade with
Mexico that will come with a more efficient border freight system.
But even as we clear this roadblock to freight movement at our borders, we must
also be concerned about how congestion beyond the borders impedes free flow of
goods across the continent.
We know that the economic costs of congestion for the freight industry and its
impact on productivity in the United States exceed $70 billion a year. And when
businesses factor in their schedule changes, buffer time requirements,
substitute deliveries, and lost customers to that total, the price we all pay
for congestion climbs higher still.
We simply cannot afford to be complacent about congestion and allow it to
endanger our freedom to move, our freedom to earn, and our freedom to travel
where we please.
Which is why the Bush Administration has taken major aim at the gridlock that is
clogging our highways and complicating our lives.
Nine months ago, the Department of Transportation launched a comprehensive
Congestion Relief Initiative. We have put a lot of time and effort into
developing this comprehensive 6-point action plan that targets congestion in all
its forms: metropolitan area congestion, congestion along major corridors, at
our busiest ports, at our congested airways, as well as at our largest border
crossings.
President Bush’s new budget for the fiscal year that will begin in October
targets $175 million directly at congestion relief, including a program we call
Corridors of the Future. Under this program, we are teaming up with community
organizations, cities, states, and private entities to fight back against the
traffic that is choking our major trade and travel corridors and putting our
economy and our freedom at risk.
Last month, I announced the 14 proposals that made the first cut because of
their strong potential to reduce congestion along some of our busiest routes.
Many of the corridors on our short-list are major routes for cross-border
commerce, carrying significant amounts of trade today and preparing for even
greater volumes tomorrow.
Any number of creative ideas that will help move freight faster are on the
table, including truck-auto separation, rail and waterway corridors, and urban
truck bypasses. This summer, we will select up to five proposals as Corridors of
the Future. Selected projects will be at the top of the Department’s priority
list. We will set ambitious permitting schedules for them, identify new
financing options to fund the projects, and fast-track them for federal dollars
to get them moving from the drawing board to completion faster than ever before.
We are working hard to ensure that vital trade and travel corridors within our
country – north, south, east, and west – do not become clogged arteries, slowing
our efforts to expand the “close to home” trade that is indispensable to
American prosperity.
We also are working more closely than ever with our neighbors to find additional
ways to open markets and offer our transportation systems that will give them
greater freedom to travel and conduct business across our borders.
This is something Mexican Transport Secretary Tellez and I discussed in
Monterrey.
And we will be joined by Canada’s Minster of Transport in Tucson, Arizona, this
spring to explore ways to improve the movement of people and goods across our
common borders.
This North American Transportation Summit will be the first time transportation
ministers from our three countries have come together in a trilateral meeting to
discuss how we can work together to make our combined transportation network the
safest and most efficient in the world.
It represents a tremendous opportunity to expand on our progress in opening
markets and advancing freedom across our common borders by removing barriers
that keep large and growing volumes of goods and travelers from moving
efficiently.
The story of America is the story of freedom's advance against barriers of every
kind. That includes barriers that hinder the free flow of goods, services, and
capital across nations.
We have seen time and again that, when these barriers are removed and people are
allowed to trade freely with each other, it promotes not only our bedrock values
but our prosperity as well.
That is why we will continue to focus on ensuring that the United States
transportation system can meet the demands of exporters looking to reach new
markets, passengers seeking new destinations, and consumers who depend on the
efficient movement of goods and people – not just with our closest neighbors,
but in markets around the world.
The Border Trade Alliance is a strong and persuasive voice in promoting freedom
of trade and freedom of movement. Thank you for your commitment to that vision,
and for allowing me to be a part of your conference today.
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Briefing
Room
