North American Union

[nChrist]

 

Here's something else that stinks. How could anyone think they could get away with something like this? Overall it doesn't make sense because the public already knows about it, and they know that the public knows about it.

It's like a few other things that stink. They should already know they can't get away with what they are about to do, but they are doing it anyway. This is like inviting the police to a bank robbery and keeping the police advised as the plans for the robbery are finalized. Does this really make sense except for a "Three Stooges Bank Robbery"?

[Soldier4Christ]

lol ...  I think that the three Stooges would do a better job of it.

[Soldier4Christ]

Mexican trucks begin crossing border Saturday 
Teamsters Union calls it 'slap in the face to American workers'

The Teamsters Union said it has been told by officials in the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that the first Mexican trucks will be coming across the border on Saturday.

The union said Wednesday it would ask a federal appeals courts to block the Bush administration's plan to begin allowing Mexican trucks to carry cargo anywhere in the United States.

Teamsters leaders said they planned to seek an emergency injunction Wednesday from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to dangerous trucks on Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest driving weekends of the year," said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa.
Joining the Teamsters in seeking the emergency stay were the Sierra Club and Public Citizen.
"Before providing unconditional access throughout the country to tens of thousands of big rigs we know little to nothing about, we must insure they meet safety and environmental standards," Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in a statement, said it was working closely with the department's inspector general "as his office completes an additional assessment of the program and we prepare a detailed response to that report."

The Bush administration said last week it would start the cross-border program once the Transportation Department's inspector general certifies safety and inspection plans.

Leslie Miller, a Teamsters spokeswoman, said attorneys for the federal truck safety agency advised the union's lawyers that they expect to get that certification on Friday. She said the Teamsters also were told by the agency attorneys that limited authority for trucks to begin crossing the border will be approved Saturday.

Supporters of the plan say letting more Mexican trucks on U.S. highways will save American consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Labor and driver-owner groups have been fighting the measure -- part of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement -- since it was first proposed, saying the program will erode highway safety and eliminate U.S. jobs.

A one-year demonstration project would allow 100 Mexican motor carriers full access to U.S. roads. It can begin as soon as the inspector general certifies that safety and inspection plans and facilities are sufficient to ensure the Mexican trucks are as safe as U.S. trucks.

Since 1982, Mexican trucks have had to stop within a buffer border zone and transfer their loads to U.S. trucks.

According to the CHP, 18 percent of Mexican carriers were sidelined in 2006. That figure stands in contrast with the 19 percent of American companies.

[Shammu]

And how many wrecks will these Mexican carriers cause??  I've seen first hand how Mexicans can drive.  There are some good drivers, but there are also some bad.

[Brother Jerry]

Not to mention many other factors such as the vehicle safety

Also who pays for an accident if one of these truckers causes the accident?  Who are they insured by?  Are we simply letting more uninsured motorists on the road? 

No this is just plain bad mojo left over from the Democratically controlled gment of the 90's.  Welcome to the new world order courtesy of Bill Clinton.  (And to be fair it was actually seeded in the Bush years)

[Shammu]

Not to mention many other factors such as the vehicle safety

Also who pays for an accident if one of these truckers causes the accident?  Who are they insured by?  Are we simply letting more uninsured motorists on the road? 

No this is just plain bad mojo left over from the Democratically controlled gment of the 90's.  Welcome to the new world order courtesy of Bill Clinton.  (And to be fair it was actually seeded in the Bush years)

Actuality you can thank Jimmy Carter for that brother.  when he addressed the U.N., durning his years as president.

[Soldier4Christ]

Name changed to hide 'Superhighway'?
WND obtains document revealing original moniker of 'SuperCorridor'

A 1998 document which WND has obtained shows the North American SuperCorridor Coalition, or NASCO, was originally named the North American Superhighway Coalition.

The document plays into an emerging debate in which a number of critics, including President Bush, want to deny that a NAFTA "Superhighway" exists.

Christopher Hayes, writing in the Aug. 27 edition of the Nation claimed that, "There is no such thing as a proposed NAFTA Superhighway."

President Bush at the third summit meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in Montebello, Quebec, on Aug. 21, answered a question from a reporter at Fox News that NAFTA Superhighways were part of a "conspiracy theory."

The document involves a June 10, 1998, letter written to Tiffany Newsom, executive director of NASCO, by Francisco J. Conde, editor and publisher of the Conde Report on U.S.-Mexico Relations.

Conde addresses NASCO as North America's Superhighway Coalition and compliments Newsom and NASCO for supporting the Interstate Highway 35 Corridor Coalition consulting team at David A. Dean & Associates, P.C. and Dean International, Inc.

The letter goes on to note the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, or TEA-21, was signed into law by President Clinton on June 9, 1998.

Conde writes that, "This bill contains for the first time in history a category and funding for trade corridors and border programs."

He continues, "The I-35 corridor is the strongest and most organized of the corridor initiatives so, if we play our cards right, we stand to get a part of the $700 million."

Conde was referring to a section of TEA-21 devoted to a new National Corridor Planning and Development program, identifying highway corridors that were specifically identified with international trade and a Coordinated Border Infrastructure program designed "to improve the safe and efficient movement of people and goods at or across the U.S./Canadian and U.S./Mexican borders."

A desire to obtain funds under TEA-21's corridor initiative may have been responsible for changing NASCO's name from North America's Superhighway Coalition to North America's SuperCorridor Coalition.

Interestingly, combining "SuperCorridor" into one word allowed preserving the correspondence required to continue using "NASCO" as the acronym for the newly renamed organization.

A close reading of NASCO's website shows NASCO does not deny that a NAFTA Superhighway exists.

NASCO insists on identifying the NAFTA Superhighway with the existing I-35, denying only that plans exist to build a new NAFTA Superhighway.

As WND has previously reported, this point is made clear by a sentence on the NASCO website which states, "There are no plans to build a new NAFTA Superhighway – it exists today as I-35."

Yet, NASCO has repeatedly refused to repudiate the plans of the Texas Department of Transportation to build the Trans-Texas Corridor as a new four-football-fields wide superhighway corridor parallel to the existing I-35.

An archived version of the NASCO website going back to Oct. 24, 2005, documents that NASCO played a role in lobbying for the creation of the National Corridor & Planning Development program and the Coordinated Border Infrastructure program when TEA-21 was being passed.

"We have assisted in the lobbying effort to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the NASCO I-35 Corridor, resulting in High Priority Status for I-35 in 1995 under the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficacy Act (ISTEA)," the 2005 NASCO website noted. "In addition, we successfully assisted in lobbying for the creation of two new categories under the Transportation Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21) – the National Corridor Planning & Development Program and the Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program."

[Soldier4Christ]

North American Union driver's license created
Logo intended to standardize documentation across continent

The first "North American Union" driver's license, complete with a hologram of the North American continent on the reverse, has been created in the state of North Carolina.

"The North Carolina driver's license is 'North American Union' ready," charges William Gheen, who serves as president of Americans for Legal Immigration.

Gheen provided WND with a photo of an actual North Carolina license which clearly shows the hologram of the North American continent embedded on the reverse.

"The hologram looks exactly [like] the map of North America that is used as the background for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America logo on the SPP website," Gheen told WND. "I object to the loss of sovereignty that is proceeding under the agreements being made by these unelected government bureaucrats who think we should be North American instead of the United States of America."

"To protest, I don't plan on applying for a North Carolina driver's license," Gheen told WND, "even though I am a resident of the state. I don't see how a Division of Motor Vehicles authorized in a Department of Transportation of a state of the United States can force me to have a license place that is designed with a North American Union insignia printed on the backside."

"My decision not to get a North Carolina driver's license could have very difficult consequences for me," Gheen told WND. "Without a valid driver's license, I may not be able to drive a car, fly on an airplane, or enter a government building."

Gheen told WND he does not have a U.S. passport.

In 2005, WND reported North Carolina was the state where illegal immigrants go to get a driver's license, with busloads of aliens traveling south on I-95 to get an easy ID.

The Tar Heel State's requirements to obtain a license are weaker than those of many surrounding states.

Marge Howell, spokeswoman for the North Carolina DMV, affirmed to WND the state was embedding a hologram of North America on the back of its new driver's licenses.

"It's a security element that eventually will be on the back of every driver's license in North America," Howell told WND.

Howell explained the hologram of the North American continent was the creation of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization that, according to the group's website, "develops model programs in motor vehicle administration, law enforcement and highway safety."

Founded in 1933, AAMVA represents state and provincial officials in the United States and Canada who administer and enforce motor vehicle laws. The government of Mexico is also a member, though the individual Mexican states have yet to join.

According to the group's website, AAMVA's programs are designed "to encourage uniformity and reciprocity among the states and provinces."

"The goal of the North American hologram," Howell explained, "is to get one common element that law enforcement throughout the continent can look at on all driver's licenses and tell that the driver's license is an official document."

Jason King, spokesman for AAMVA, affirmed the North American hologram was created by AAMVA's Uniform Identification Subcommittee, a working group of AAMVA members.

He explained the goal is to create a continental security device that could be used by state and provincial motor vehicles agencies throughout North America, including the United States, Canada and Mexico.

King referenced a document on the AAMVA website that describes guidelines for using the North America continent hologram as an Optical Variable Device (OVD) that AAMVA has now licensed with private manufacturers to produce.

AAMVA supplies member motor vehicle agencies with a quantity of North American continent hologram OVD foils to use on their driver's licenses and ID cards as needed.

As the guidelines document on the AAMVA explains, each North American continental hologram OVD foil is embedded with a unique set of control numbers that permit law enforcement electronic scanners to identify the exact jurisdiction and precise individual authorized to hold a driver's license or ID card with that particular OVD foil embedded.

"AAMVA understands its unique positioning and the continuing role identification security will play in helping the general public realize a safer North America," King explained to WND in an e-mail. "The association believes ID security will help increase national security, increase highway safety, reduce fraud and system abuse, increase efficiency and effectiveness, and achieve uniformity of processes and practices."

Jim Palmer, press director for ALIPAC, told WND that ALIPAC first became aware of the hologram when Missouri State Rep. Jim Guest held a seminar in North Carolina to protest the Real ID law.

"The surprise came at a meeting on the Real ID that Palmer held in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday, July 28," Palmer told WND.

"When Rep. Guest asked participants to take out their driver's license and see what was on it," Palmer explained, "one gentleman was a state employee and on his license there was this hologram with the North American continent on the back. We were all surprised to see that on a North Carolina driver's license. Right there, that stopped the show."

Guest has formed a coalition called Legislators Against Real ID Act, or LARI.

"I was astonished when I saw that North American hologram on the North Carolina driver's license," Guest told WND. "I thought to myself that the state DMV has already included this North American symbol on the back of the driver's license without telling the people of North Carolina they were going to do this."

"I thought right then that this was going to be the prototype for the driver's license of the North American Union," Guest told WND.

"When we called the North Carolina DMV, they hedged at first," Guest said, "but finally they admitted that, yes, there was a North American continent hologram on the back of the license."

"This is part of a plan by bureaucrats and trade groups that act like bureaucrats to little by little transform us into a North American Union without any vote being taken and without explaining to the U.S. public what they are doing," Guest argued.

King explained AAMVA’s Uniform Identification Subcommittee created a number of task forces, including the Card Design Specification that developed the North America continent hologram OVD.

"The Task Group surveyed and met with many stakeholders during the development effort," King wrote to WND. "The Task Force gathered information from government and non-government users of the driver's License/ID card to determine their uses for the DL/ID card and how they believe the card should function. In addition, the Task Group surveyed and met with industry experts in the area of card production and security to gather their advice, especially about the physical security of the card."

King told WND the Task Group work was repeatedly reviewed by the UID Subcommittee as a whole, with final approval coming from the AAMVA Board.

In 2006, WND reported Pastor Rios Sanchez, 55, an illegal alien, was accused of killing three people, including two North Carolina State University students and a 26-year-old, while driving drunk.

"People who think the Real ID was created to keep illegal aliens from getting driver's licenses and IDs should come to North Carolina," Gheen told WND. "What the North Carolina DMV is doing is creating the basis for a continental driver's license."

"What difference does it make to North Carolina if an illegal alien gets a driver's license?" Gheen asked. "The photo on the license creates a close face scan that can be identified by face recognition technology, whether the DMV admits it or not."

"Illegal aliens who get driver's licenses are just being scanned in advance," Gheen concluded.

"Illegal aliens who get driver's licenses or IDs in North Carolina are just being prepared for their admission into the North America Union driver pool that North Carolina is at the vanguard of creating," Gheen said. "That is the truth, whether the North Carolina DMV or the AAMVA want to admit it or not."

King told WND North Carolina is the first AAMVA member jurisdiction to use the North America continent hologram on a driver's license or ID card.

[Shammu]

North American Union driver's license created

Well my drivers license expires in 2018.  So I don't have to worry about getting the North American Union driver's license, for a while.

[Soldier4Christ]

Toll road deal imposes 'century of traffic congestion'
No-compete clauses granted foreign investors

An agreement has been reached with foreign investors to take over operations of the Denver area's Northwest Parkway transportation corridor, but one critic says the contract includes a no-compete clause that will impose mandatory traffic congestion – for the next 99 years.

"It's bad enough that the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority and its member governments sharply increased the tolls for today's drivers, but to intentionally impose a century of congestion on future generations in exchange for this short-term bailout is shockingly shortsighted," said Golden Mayor Pro Tem Jacob Smith.

The Northwest Parkway runs around the northwest corner of the Denver metropolitan area, and connects to several other segments of a transportation corridor that is being developed about 20 miles outside of the Denver downtown. The metropolitan area has been identified as an ultimate target for construction in several different NAFTA Superhighway configurations.

Golden has been battling the plans, because the proposals have been for a new highway to bisect the historic Colorado foothills town.

Officials with the highway authority, who report daily road usage totals ranging from 1,891 to 16,451 vehicles, recently announced a 99-year lease agreement with Auto-Estradas de Portugal, S.A., which is known as Brisa.

Officials in Portugal noted that it is the company's first adventure in leasing and running a toll road in the United States, although it already runs hundreds of miles of toll roads in Europe and South America.

Brisa reports it has 90 percent of the contract, while its Brazilian subsidiary Companhia de Concessoes Rodoviarias has 10 percent. The Colorado project already has about nine miles of roadway built and open for use, with another two miles yet to be constructed.

The company estimates it will invest about $543 million in the project. A different estimate came from Northwest Parkway officials, who said the company will pay off the $503 million in bonded indebtedness, and allow another $100 million for other costs.

But Golden officials, fearing the encroachment of transportation megaprojects, warned that Article 14 of the lease to privatize the Northwest Parkway operations "requires payments to the foreign corporation if certain roads or facilities are built in the area that would compete with the toll road."

"The lease provides that 'the construction of a Competing Transportation Facility' constitutes an action that gives the foreign corporation the right to terminate the lease and seek significant damages from the Highway Authority," the city said in a statement.

Such competing facilities, the city noted, would include the extension of several major arterials in the vicinity of the Northwest Parkway, certain other road projects within five miles of the highway, as well as even some mass transit projects.

"Because such damages would likely return the Authority to a financially perilous position, it will create a large impediment to future transportation projects in the area," the city said.

"This noncompete agreement intentionally ties the hands of local and regional governments and the state to address transportation needs in this area, which can only serve to further congest area roads over the 99-year term of the lease. The beneficiaries of this agreement are the Portuguese and Brazilian companies that will collect the tolls. Even then, it's unlikely they'll be able to generate sufficient traffic on the road," Smith said.

"If demand existed or was expected to materialize for the Northwest Parkway or potential extensions of the toll road, there wouldn't be a need for such a noncompete agreement. However, all the traffic studies to date show there is very little demand for a major tolled highway between Broomfield and Golden, and tolling could only pay for a small fraction of what would be needed to build such a road. The only thing that could make the noncompete agreement worse would be if taxpayers were forced to subsidize extensions of the toll road and then be forced to pay to use them," Smith said.

City officials noted that noncompete clauses on toll roads have produced difficulties in other parts of the region, and nation. In the 1990s, communities in the corridor northeast of Denver, which now includes Denver International Airport, agreed no roads would compete with the E-470 toll road there. So Commerce City was required to lower the speed limit and install traffic lights on another publicly funded corridor, Tower Road.

"According to a 2004 report from the U.S. Government Accounting Office, 'The language in the noncompete clause for the SR91 Express Lanes in Orange County, Calif., effectively prevented the state from improving the nontolled freeway lanes of SR91 until 2030 – the term of the franchise agreement – and was the subject of litigation and considerable public outcry,'" the city said.

The result there was that the Orange County Transportation Authority bought the road back from the private operator.

The contract also allows the tolls to rise from the current $2 for the nine miles to $3 over the next year, and then at least 2 percent every year thereafter.

The consortium will handle road maintenance, traffic enforcement and making improvements, and in return will take all of the tolls.

WND previously reported that North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc., or NASCO, also has figured out a way to cash in on the Chinese containers passing along the NAFTA Superhighway from the Mexican ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas to U.S. and Canadian destinations.

WND has obtained a copy of a draft preliminary joint venture contract between Savi Networks and NASCO, specifying that NASCO will get paid 25 cents for each "revenue-generating intermodal ocean cargo container" registered by the RFID sensors the communist Chinese are now installing along Interstate 35.

[Soldier4Christ]

1st Mexican truck rolls
under cover of darkness 
Official: 'Logistical Trans-Corridor
of North America' open for business

The first Mexican truck authorized by a Bush administration program opening U.S. highways to trucking companies from south of the border crossed into the U.S. this morning at approximately 1:50 a.m. EDT at Laredo, Texas, headed for North Carolina, according to a report from Trucker.com.

WND research indicates Transportes Olympic, the Mexican trucking firm sending this morning's tractor trailer north, was actually selected to be the first across the border nearly six months ago, despite the administration's "last-minute" announcement of the carrier earlier this week – a revelation that has been described as an example of "stealth."

The designation of Transportes Olympic actually was made at a Feb. 22, 2007, ceremony held in Apodaca, a municipality of the city of Monterrey in the Mexican state Nuevo Leon, the headquarters location of Transportes Olympic.

The government ceremony in Mexico went virtually unreported in the U.S. media.

In attendance were Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, together with her Mexican counterpart, Luis Téllez, secretary of communications and transportation, and José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, governor of Nuevo Leon.

There Peters officially blessed Transportes Olympic as the first Mexican trucking company that would be allowed to operate freely in the U.S. under NAFTA.

That Transportes Olympic had been selected months earlier was not disclosed last Thursday when John Hill, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Administration, announced Transportes Olympic to the U.S. public.

Hill's announcement came in a dramatic, surprise late-night telephone conference held with selected members of the U.S. media at 9:00 p.m. EDT, after many deadlines had past for filing Friday morning stories.

At the February ceremony, Gov. Gonzáles Parás took the occasion to make two other declarations that have not been reported in the U.S. media.

In speaking to the group assembled at the Transportes Olympic headquarters, Gonzáles Parás announced the Trans-Texas Corridor was not just the NAFTA Superhighway, but the "Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America," uniting Mexico, the U.S., and Canada.

Gonzáles Parás next announced that the time had arrived to declare a North American Economic Community.

Gonzáles Parás explained the Trans-Texas Corridor was more accurately known in Mexico as the "Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America."

"I want to let you know how much we in this border state of Nuevo Leon have been working with our neighbor state of Texas," Gonzáles Parás said, "making agreements which permit us to enrich what in Texas is called the 'Trans-Texas Corridor,' but what we in Mexico know as the 'Logistical Corridor of North America.'"

"We – Canada, the United States, and Mexico – have to perfect this Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America for our mutual benefit," Gonzáles Parás continued.

Gonzáles Parás expanded his vision of to include the construction of a train and truck corridor that would cut through the heart of North America.

In his speech, Gonzáles Parás confirmed what WND has previously described as a new NAFTA Superhighway, the first segment of which is the planned four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor which the Texas Department of Transportation plans to build parallel to Interstate 35.

Explaining Nuevo Leon finds itself right at the center of this Logistical Corridor of North America, Gonzáles Parás said Mexico "must synchronize our truck and train systems of transportation and our maritime port connections" with those of the United States, anticipating the massive quantity of freight that will need to be carried from the ports in Mexico on the Pacific to the heart of North America.

A report in the Mexican press added that Téllez also used the February ceremony to announce Presidents Felipe Calderon and George Bush had agreed to create "an economically integrated North America."

On Friday, after discovering the report about the February ceremony in Mexico, WND phoned Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, and read him the newspaper article.

"Unfortunately, I'm not surprised," Spencer told WND. "This confirms what we have long believed. You have to read what the Mexican government says in Spanish to know what the Bush administration is doing with Mexican trucks, or for that matter, anything else that affects Mexico and the United States."

"The Bush administration pursues a stealth policy in the United States when it comes to Mexico," Spencer emphasized. "The Bush administration acts like they want to hide from the American public and from the U.S. Congress what they are really doing behind the scenes to open our borders with Mexico."

"Put simply," Spencer continued, "the policy of the Bush administration is to be less than honest with the American public and Congress when it comes to Mexico."

WND has experience which confirms Spencer's comments.

WND was only able to break the news the Department of Transportation Mexican truck demonstration project was scheduled to start early this month by reading reports in Spanish on the Mexican government Department of Transportation's website.

There, in Spanish, WND read statements by Mexican Transportation Secretary Luis Téllez announcing 37 Mexican trucking companies had satisfactorily met U.S. DOT requirements for participating in the test and the start date was scheduled to be Sept. 1.

Throughout August, DOT and FMCSA worked furiously behind closed doors to craft a highly technical regulatory response to the legal requirements of Congress.

Throughout last month, DOT and FMCSA spokesmen maintained a policy of saying nothing to Congress or to the U.S. media, even when directly asked when the Mexican trucking demonstration project was scheduled to start.

Even after Thursday's FMSCA announcement that the DOT Mexican truck demonstration project was ready to launch, WND continued to experience difficulties getting any response from the Bush administration.

As recently as last Friday, WND was unable to receive return phone calls from DOT and FMCSA spokesmen.

As WND has previously reported, Congress in 2002 blocked the Mexican truck demonstration project by inserting into the FY 2002 DOT appropriations bill a prohibition against starting the project until 22 specified safety requirements had been met by FMCSA.

Last Thursday saw a flurry of activity as DOT and FMCSA bureaucrats worked to make sure they were in technical compliance with these Congressional requirements.

The inspector general's report was finally delivered to Congress, dated Thursday.

Peters wrote a sign-off letter to Vice President Cheney just hours before Hill made his evening telephone call naming Transportes Olympic as the first Mexican trucking company the agency had certified.

Spencer objected to WND that DOT and FMCSA did not file in the Federal Register the final go-ahead decision.

"What happened to the 10-day period for public comment?" Spencer asked WND. "DOT and FMCSA may have complied with the letter of the law, but they where nowhere near complying with the spirit of what Congress had required."

[Soldier4Christ]

Hoffa: Mexican truck program 'sucker punches' U.S. 
Calls effort 'disaster waiting to happen' – leader vows Teamsters will fight funding

Calling a new pilot program opening the border to Mexican trucks dangerous, Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said today in Houston the union will lobby to cut its funding.

Hoffa said money for the new program came from somewhere and the union will press Congress to stop it.

"We can do that," he said.

In prepared remarks, the union president said the Bush administration has "sucker-punched" American workers by opening highways to Mexican trucks.

Under the year-long pilot program, up to 100 Mexican carriers can get permission to go beyond a 25-mile buffer zone in the U.S. There are also provisions for U.S. carriers to go into Mexico.

The program comes under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Hoffa told the annual Teamsters Women's Conference at the Hilton Americas hotel that drugs could come in the U.S. across the border in the trucks. He said that although the Bush administration says it is concerned about national security, the program will threaten safety.

The union, along with groups including the Sierra Club and Public Citizen, argues it endangers highways because safety issues aren't resolved. A new report by the Department of Transportation's inspector general strengthens that argument, Hoffa said.

That report concluded the Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration hasn't developed and implemented complete, coordinated plans for checking trucks and drivers in the demonstration project as they cross the border.

"It's a disaster waiting to happen," the Teamsters president said.

But the safety administration says the inspector general affirmed its plans to go beyond statutory requirements and to check every truck crossing the border.

John H. Hill, administrator of the Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said today every audit the inspector general has done since 2002 found the department made substantial compliance in meeting requirements laid out by Congress.

"Any time a government program is put in place, there are always ways to improve it," he said.

Hill added that the pilot program's safety protocols are more rigorous for Mexican carriers than they are for U.S. carriers. And he questioned why Hoffa is concerned that U.S. trucking companies can't compete with Mexican trucking companies.

"We believe they can," Hill said. "I think this is about issues unrelated to the safety agenda."

The administrator also said some of the comments being made are unduly alarming to the public. He stressed last week that the program meets all public safety requirements.

Thursday night, transportation officials said one Mexican carrier and two U.S. carriers had been certified under the program. Friday evening, the Mexican carrier sent a truck loaded with steel bound for Wilson Hills, N.C.

A lawsuit by the Teamsters and other groups aimed at blocking the program is pending in court.

[Soldier4Christ]

NAFTA Superhighway plans advance south 
Texas governor, Mexico agree to extend Trans-Texas Corridor

Official Mexican government reports reveal Mexico has entered discussions with the state of Texas and top officials in the Bush administration to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico, with a plan to connect through Monterrey to the deep-water Mexican ports on the Pacific, including Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas.

The official website of the Mexican northeastern state of Nuevo León contain multiple reports that José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, has actively discussed with numerous U.S. government officials, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the extension of the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico to create what's called a "Trans North America Corridor."

In an August trip to Mexico, Perry made news in U.S. media by calling the idea of building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border "idiocy."

Largely unreported in the American press were meetings Perry held in Mexico with Gonzáles Parás in which the two discussed extending the corridor into Mexico.

In their private meetings, the pair thoroughly discussed extending TTC-35 into Mexico, according to a report on the government's site.

In an interview prior to Perry's visit, Gonzáles Parás made it clear the extension of TTC-35 into Mexico would be a discussed during Perry's time there.

"We have had interaction with the governor of Texas," Gonzáles Parás said. "We have had a very productive relationship with Rick Perry, who is also interested in what we can do to continue that which is known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, that in reality is the corridor of North America, the Trans North America Corridor, that includes railroads, bridges, passenger automobile highways, and truck highway lanes."

Gonzáles Parás further explained the extension of TTC-35 into Mexico would connect through Monterrey, a city which he suggested would function as a hub for truck-freight traffic. Monterrey is the capital of Nuevo León.

"One of the themes that merited the most attention on the part of the two governors was the development of the infrastructure needed for the competitive development of the region as it relates to developing the Trans-Texas Corridor in connection with the project we call the Corridor of Northeastern Mexico," the Nuevo León government website reported Gonzáles Parás saying Sept. 1, at the conclusion of Perry's visit.

Gonzáles Parás is reportedly pursuing plans to establish Monterrey as an "inland port" where international container freight cargo, largely delivered into Mexico via the Mexican ports on the Pacific, could be transported via a Trans North America Corridor into the United States via Laredo, Texas.

Once on I-35, the Mexican trucks transporting the Chinese containers could travel north, heading toward U.S. inland ports, such as WND has previously reported are being established by the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio in San Antonio and in Kansas City by the Kansas City SmartPort.

On May 24, Gonzáles Parás announced during his recent meetings in Austin, Perry had agreed the envisioned Trans North America Corridor would pass through Laredo and connect with San Antonio, just as Mexico ultimately planned to extend the superhighway south into Colombia.

"We have also worked in Monterrey to create an inland port, a metropolitan center for moving rapidly the commercial traffic from Monterrey to the inland port at San Antonio," Gonzáles Parás said in the state-published interview."For this strategic project to be accomplished, we have been working with the federal government in Mexico and well as holding discussions with the secretary of transportation and the secretary of state in the United States."

WND has previously reported similar comments made by Gonzáles Parás at a Feb. 22 press conference in Mexico that first announced Transportes Olympic had been selected as the first trucking firm to cross the border in the Mexican truck-demonstration project.

In speaking to the group assembled at the company's headquarters, Gonzáles Parás announced the Trans-Texas Corridor was not just the NAFTA Superhighway, but "the Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America," uniting Mexico, the United States and Canada.

He next announced the time had arrived to declare a North American Economic Community.

Gonzáles Parás explained the Trans-Texas Corridor was more accurately known in Mexico as the "Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America."

"I want to let you know how much we in this border state of Nuevo León have been working with our neighbor state of Texas," he said, "making agreements which permit us to enrich what in Texas is called the 'Trans-Texas Corridor,' but what we in Mexico know as the 'Logistical Corridor of North America.'"

"We – Canada, the United States and Mexico – have to perfect this Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America for our mutual benefit," Gonzáles Parás continued.

He expanded his vision of a Logistical Corridor of North America to include the construction of a train and truck corridor that would cut through the heart of North America.

WND has previously described as a new NAFTA Superhighway, the first segment of which is the planned four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor which the Texas Department of Transportation plans to build parallel to Interstate 35.

WND has also reported that at the recent Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) third summit held in Montebello, Quebec, President Bush and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper ridiculed the idea that SPP might result in the creation of a North American Union or NAFTA Superhighways.

These reports in Spanish published on the Nuevo León government website suggest that discussions about extending TTC-35 into Mexico are much further advanced that have been admitted by the Bush administration or reported upon in the U.S. mainstream media.

[Soldier4Christ]

Canada preparing ports for NAFTA Superhighway 
Building 'free trade gateway' between Asia, North America

Canada is developing Pacific ports to compete with the U.S. ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, as well as with the Mexican ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, in an attempt to draw a substantial market share of the millions of containers expected to flow into North America in the coming decades from China and the Far East.

To attract Chinese container traffic, the Canadian government has launched a major ports-rail-truck-airport transportation infrastructure designed to build its version of the emerging NAFTA Superhighway.

In October 2006, the Canadian minority government under the direction of Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper launched the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative, or APGCI, as a key component of Canada's national transportation policy.

The idea is to prepare deep-water Pacific Ocean ports on Canada's West Coast to facilitate the import of millions of multi-modal containers from China as a "free trade gateway" between Asia and North America.

WND reported Mexico plans to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor south in what government officials in Mexico are calling a "Trans North America Corridor."

According to Transport Canada, Canada's equivalent to the U.S. Department of Transportation, rail and road connections through Prince Rupert and Vancouver in British Columbia will carry the Asian containers into Canada through Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta.

From there, the planned rail-truck-passenger superhighways will head toward Winnipeg, where cross-border connections south will direct the containers from China and the Far East onto the Interstate 35 corridor in the U.S., establishing a major link in the emerging continental NAFTA Superhighway.

The plan is clearly explained in Canada's National Policy for Strategic Gateways and Trade Corridors, a policy that includes development of the Ontario-Quebec Continental Gateway and Trade Corridor, as WND reported.

The National Policy for Strategic Gateways and Trade Corridors specifies the Canadian federal government has committed $1 billion to develop transportation infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative, identified as "a network of transportation infrastructure including British Columbia's Lower Mainland and Prince Rupert ports, their principal road and rail connections stretching across Western Canada and south (to) the United States, key border crossings and major Canadian airports."

Canada Transport states clearly a major purpose of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative is to increase Canada's share of North America-bound container imports from Asia.

"Canada's Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor offers world class marine, rail, road and air infrastructure closer to Asia than all its North American competitors," the Transport Canada website announces.

In January, David Emerson, minister of international trade and minister for the Pacific Gateway, led a trade delegation of Canadian transportation and logistics senior executives on a mission to Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai.

During the trip, Emerson and the Chinese minister of communications signed an updated agreement "to foster cooperation on intermodal transportation gateways to support international trade."

Transport Canada articulates how the vision of a North American economy has driven the development of Canadian national transportation policy.

"The integrated North American economy provides the 'platform' for Canada's successful global engagement," a brochure on the Transport Canada website proclaims in the process of explaining Canada's National Policy for Strategic Gateways and Trade Corridors.

According to Transport Canada, between 1995 and 2005, Canada's exports more than doubled, from $3.5 billion to $7.1 billion, in Canadian dollars.

Yet, imports from China dwarfed the numbers.

Between 1995 and 2005, Canada's imports from China grew almost 550 percent, jumping from $3.6 billion to $29.6 billion, in Canadian dollars.

Transport Canada confidently announces "China's recent dramatic growth (in imports to Canada) is expected to continue."

"Canada's Asia-Pacific Gateway is a burgeoning national strategy that is responding to the rise of Asian economies and the challenges and opportunities Asia now poses for Canada," the official website of the Asia-Pacific Gateway states.

The province of British Columbia has devoted $12 billion for new transportation infrastructure and has established the Asia Pacific Trade Council to build marketing links with China and the Far East.

Canada's Prince Rupert and Vancouver are both deep-water ports suited to accommodate the post-Panamax class of container Megaships China is building.

[Soldier4Christ]

Senate votes to kill Mexican truck demo 
Bush 'Open Borders' agenda dealt serious bipartisan blow

The U.S. Senate has dealt a likely death blow to the Bush administration plans to give Mexican long-haul trucking rigs free access to United States roads and highways.

A bipartisan majority voted 74-24 tonight to pass an amendment offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to remove funding from the Fiscal Year 2008 Department of Transportation appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation Mexican trucking demonstration project.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., joined Dorgan as a co-sponsor of his amendment.

"Tonight, commerce – for a change – did not trump safety," Dorgan said in a news release issued after the vote.

"Tonight's vote is a vote for safety," Dorgan said. "It also represents a turning of the tide on the senseless, headlong rush this country has been engaged in for some time, to dismantle safety standards and a quality of life it took generations to achieve."

Teamster General President Jim Hoffa praised the Senate for "slamming the door on the Bush administration's illegal, reckless plan to open our borders to trucks from Mexico."

"The American people have spoken, and Congress has spoken," Hoffa said. "Now it's time for the Bush administration to listen. We don't want to share our highways with dangerous trucks from Mexico."

A counter amendment offered by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was submitted in an effort to keep the Mexican truck demonstration project alive, even if on life support.

Cornyn had proposed to allow the demonstration project to go forward, while reserving the right of the Senate to pull the plug if safety problems developed in the initial phases of the program roll-out.

Cornyn's proposal was killed by a strong bipartisan 80-18 vote to table his amendment.

Repeatedly, in arguing from the floor of the Senate for his amendment, Cornyn mischaracterized NAFTA as having created a "treaty obligation" requiring the United States to allow Mexican trucks free access to U.S. roads.

Dorgan objected, pointing out that NAFTA was passed in 1993 as a law, not a treaty.

The vote, taken on the evening of the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, represented a strong sentiment in the Senate that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the DOT inspector general had failed to make the case in their eleventh hour reports submitted to Congress late last Thursday that adequate inspection procedures were in place to insure that Mexican trucks would meet U.S. safety standards.

Dorgan argued on the floor of the U.S. Senate that Mexico had no national database which would permit the FMCSA or the DOT inspector general to verify accident reports or driver violations of Mexican drivers or the reliability of vehicle inspections conducted in Mexico.

Speaking in favor of Dorgan's amendment, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the issue really was "free trade" agreements advanced by the Bush administration that advantaged only the multi-national corporations.

Brown compared the safety concerns of allowing Mexican trucks to enter freely into the United States with the safety risks raised by lead paint use by the Chinese on imported toys and Chinese pet and human food that contained poisonous or otherwise toxic elements.

"We need to vote for our children, for our families, for our pets, and for ourselves," Brown charged, urging in an emotional plea that the Senate pass Dorgan's amendment.

In May, the House of Representatives passed the Safe American Roads Act of 2007 (H.R. 1773), by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-3 margin.

The majority in the House opposing the DOT Mexican trucking demonstration project makes almost certain that the Dorgan amendment will survive when a conference committee reviews the DOT funding bill that will go to President Bush for his signature.

The Senate is now considered likely to finalize the DOT funding bill today, with the Dorgan amendment included.

"Because my amendment is identical to language already included in the House-passed version of this bill," Dorgan said in the press release issued after the vote, "I expect this provision will not be altered in the House-Senate conference committee and that we have, effectively, stopped this pilot program."