Associated Press / By MEGAN K. STACK, Associated Press Writer
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - With hundreds of thousands of big rigs rumbling over the Rio Grande every year, state inspectors have devised a low-tech way to determine which Mexican trucks to stop.
"We only inspect the ones that look really, really bad," Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said Wednesday. "Like, 'Oh, my God, how's that gonna stay together?' We're only taking the worst of the worst."
The result is that only a fraction of the Mexican rigs hauling tools, car parts and blue jeans are stopped for safety inspections before rumbling into the United States.
U.S. officials cited such concerns to help explain why they won't be able to meet a Thursday deadline to allow Mexican trucks full access to American roads.
The North American Free Trade Agreement had called for Mexican trucks to have unrestricted access to highways in border states - Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona - by 1995 and full access to all U.S. highways by January 2000.
But a NAFTA arbitration panel ruled Feb. 6 that the United States had violated the treaty by refusing to allow Mexican trucks full access to American highways.
The Bush administration had until Thursday to implement a policy acceptable to Mexico or face possible Mexican sanctions. U.S. officials said they don't expect to face penalties.
Mexican officials acknowledged the importance of safety during a recent meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Trade Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez, his Mexican counterpart.
David DeCarme, a Department of Transportation division chief, said a timetable has not yet been set on when Mexico will get a complete truck policy.
Mexico's Deputy Transport Minister Aaron Dychter has said Mexico "harmonized" its safety standards to match those of the United States, but critics say Mexican enforcement is lax.
Currently, the roughly 5 million Mexican trucks entering the country each year are limited to a 20-mile zone north of the border, where they transfer their loads to U.S. trucks.
Texas officials say just one out of every 100 rigs is checked - and the safety record for those trucks is spotty, at best: Nearly half the trucks checked last year were taken out of service for faulty brakes, cracked wheels, insecure loads and other flaws.
The federal government has increased the number of inspectors on the border this year to 60, but the Transportation Department says 126 are needed.
"You don't get funding overnight, and we believe to adequately patrol and enforce our safety standards it takes real people, real workers," said Brian Rainville, spokesman for the Teamsters Union, which opposes allowing Mexican trucks more access.
To make way for Mexican big rigs, Texas officials want to build eight border inspection stations along the Rio Grande, an undertaking likely to cost $80 million.
Transportation officials also hope to develop a new, $6 billion interstate to ease the strain on Interstate 35, the mighty road spanning from Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minn.
But border states continue to balk at coughing up money they say will benefit the rest of the country.
"We need federal funds," said Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Gaby Garcia. "We don't believe we should bear the financial burden of NAFTA.":
