Equal protection: some more equal than others

By Dr. Jim Giermanski

Laredo, or should I say its leadership, has always had an inflated opinion of itself, even though the city has little to brag about. But it does brag. It touts trade. And it actually believes it controls its trade. We know that Laredo controls international trade because it says it does. Its bravado is amply demonstrated in its recent publication, Laredo, Texas Truck Inspections Stations. In it Laredo asserted: "The City's unique position is based on years of experience in balancing international trade flow and safety, security and environmental issues on the Southern Border of the United States." In it Laredo wants inspections to be accomplished beyond the commercial zones.
Just how did Laredo balance international trade flows? They don't make the call on what's bought and sold internationally, on hours of operation of the port or bridge, on Mexican Customs' practices, or on when trucks enter or leave the city. How is Laredo balancing environmental issues? Laredo has made many such incredible assertions. Review some of the Laredo's economic development reports and claims. Now, it seems there is a new cry. Inspecting trucks at the border will add to congestion and pollution and compromise safety and security! Where did that come from? Is it really an issue of concern for its citizens or a veil for concern for land deals at the bridge? Whatever the basis, Laredo continues to pout and shout to the feds: listen to us! We know BETTER. U.S. Federal law has to be applied differently for us! It's not fair! We're Laredo!
It's time leadership in Laredo quits crying and matures. How can not inspecting at the border improve the safety and security for Larodeans? Or put another way, how can inspecting trucks which have already gone through Laredo provide for the safety and security of those who live in Laredo? Perhaps what Laredo is saying is that they have more concern about the citizens of the interior of the United States than they have for those who live in Laredo.
Laredo's interpretation of the law is quite unique, too. The City makes it sound like only trucks going into the interior have to meet Federal safety requirements. The law says Mexican motor carriers must meet requirements in and out of commercial zones: First, U.S. trucking laws that apply to interstate carriage actually apply to both drayage and long-haul. Second, interstate trucking laws apply equally to foreign carriage and U.S. carriage. Third, motor carriage operating in commercial zones is not exempt from the obligation to meet Federal motor carrier safety standards if carriage in that zone is, among other things, for "arrangement for a continuous carriage or shipment to or from a place outside the municipality, municipalities or zones." In other words another Public Law, Public Law 104-88, says that if interstate cargo enters or exits the commercial zone, the trucks carrying that cargo are subject to Federal motor carrier safety laws. Why, then, does the Laredo leadership not want them to be inspected when they come in? Fourth, USDOT-granted operating authority, whether OP-1 or OP-2, applies equally to all interstate domestic and foreign motor carriers (including foreign drayage) when it comes to truck safety. Finally, truck safety inspections have little to do with the long lines on the bridges and pollution.
Can Laredo produce scientific evidence demonstrating the deleterious effect of air pollution caused by trucks in Laredo? Certainly, if they could, they would. Or maybe not. Why does Laredo leadership seem to continuously distort the truth? Laredo compares Detroit and Chicago to Laredo. Laredo's leadership also uses Mexican drayage out-of-service rates to compare to U.S. long-haul rates. The source for those numbers, the DOT Inspector General, clearly cautions their use in representing statistically significance conclusions. However, that's never stopped Laredo. Remember the Laredo Development Foundation report that said NAFTA would create directly and indirectly 98,501 transportation jobs in Laredo alone? (That's about half the entire population of Laredo.) Or that "Laredo is the only Port of Entry with international drayage companies with I.C.C. authority to provide freight service back and forth across the U.S./Mexico Border?" In response to some of these baseless claims, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts stated in a letter to me: "It was brought to my attention that the Texas Input-Output Model, 1986 Update, may have been misused in an analysis of the economic impacts from increased Laredo truck traffic resulting from freer trade agreements with Mexico." The Comptroller goes on to state: "To ascribe all Sector 92 benefits (motor freight and storage) to just Laredo is a gross overstatement of the impact and will not stand a 'reality check' when compared with population and employment numbers at present." Laredo knows, or should know, when to be accurate. Just like the city knows, but will not vocalize, that long lines are directly connected to the Mexican customs brokers' control of the border and to the Customs administrations of the ports, not trucks!
The ICC Termination Act of 1995 clearly defines interstate or foreign carriage to include drayage as long as the drayage activity is connected to transportation services which ingress or egress the zone. If goods arrive into the zone for the purpose of transferring out of the zone (for instance, to Mexico or to the United States) and are in fact, moved out of the zone, drayage carriers must meet Federal motor carrier safety standards just like long-haulers. Additionally, the Fiscal Year 2002 DOT Appropriations Act enacted into law in December 2001 set forth standards consistent with the NAFTA Arbitral Panel Report requiring similarity of regulatory treatment with respect to safety. When discussing Mexican-owned or domiciled carriers, DOT's Final Interim Rule states: "These carriers are subject to the same safety requirements, inspection procedures, enforcement mechanisms and fines and out-of-service orders that apply to any other U.S. carrier." So why would a responsible city government not want to help guarantee safety compliance by a certain amount of inspections at the border? Doesn't that really mean that Laredo's leadership does not care about safety in its own city and really cares only about the safety of those
who live away from the border, like in Austin or Dallas? It must, because the City, through its actions, wants only long-haulers who do not operate in commercial zones to be safe! If inspection stations are outside of the zone, as called for by the City, then only the long-haulers would be inspected. The truth is the city is calling for inspections outside Laredo's zone, which is eight miles beyond the city limits (49CFR372). One could argue that the apparent disregard for the safety of its citizens, vis-a-vis the citizens of the U.S. interior, may constitute an injury to Laredoans remedied, perhaps in court, under equal protection laws.
Whether it's an OP-1 (beyond commercial zones) or OP-2 (within commercial zones) operating authority, there is no difference when it comes to meeting Federal motor carrier safety standards. There actually never has been a moratorium on truck safety compliance in commercial zones in contemporary times. The law and USDOT's Interim Final Rules are crystal clear in not differentiating safety and operating authority. Fortunately for Laredo, there is a Federal and State government to stand up for the city's citizenry.
The final issue is probably the most important. If all truck cargo did not have to stop in Laredo before crossing, there probably would not be congestion. Air cargo into Mexico from the United States is not released by a Mexican customs broker before it enters Mexico. Vessel cargo into Mexico from the United States is not released by a Mexican customs broker before it enters Mexico. Only truck cargo must stop in Laredo and wait until the Mexican customs broker executes the pedimento and releases the cargo for entry. The fact is that Laredo does not balance international trade. It has trade not because of the intelligence, vision, business acuity, or understanding of the city's leadership. Laredo owes a debt of gratitude to Nuevo Laredo's Mexican customs brokers who created a system which the city got simply by chance. Without the current clutter, Laredo would be what it ought to be: a nice south Texas town with a good quality of life.
There is another reason why Laredo's congestion has nothing to do with truck inspections: Laredo is simply inefficient. U.S. Customs has four bridges (about 26 lanes) under its control. Yet U.S. Customs uses basically only one bridge and then for only a day. Detroit crosses more cargo than Laredo on a four-lane 80-year-old bridge, shared by passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles alike, without lines waiting to cross. And through-put per hour for U.S. Customs was virtually the same at the time I did the research.
Frankly, Mexican customs is mostly accountable for what congestion exists at the Laredo border. In Nuevo Laredo, Aduana has delayed opening the new Recintos Fiscalizados (foreign trade zones) which would have an incredible effect on reducing congestion. Additionally, like a lady of the night, Aduana has remained in bed with the Mexican customs brokers who have sufficient money to influence the perpetuation of the current system, which is absolutely essential for the wallets of the Mexican brokers.
In summary, if Laredo is worried about congestion and its environmental impact, it needs to focus on the current Customs' practices of crossing cargo, not on trucks. Opening the border to truck cargo, as it is open to air and vessel cargo, combined with opening the border to trucks, would clearly change Laredo. Maybe the truth is that those who claim to lead Laredo really don't understand trade as they think they do, let alone how to manage it. If Laredo really understood the impact of trade on the city, they wouldn't want anything to be done outside the city. To the contrary, without the unnecessary clutter brought about by trucks and warehouses, what would Laredo have to offer investors? Maybe the real truth is that its leadership doesn't understand that either, and, therefore, they probably wouldn't understand what changing it would mean!

(Dr. Jim Giermanski is currently Professor and Director of International Business Studies at Belmont Abbey College. A former Regents Professor at Texas A&M International University, he also served as Director of Transportation and Logistics Studies, Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, at A&M International. Dr. Giermanski consults often on international transportation, border logistics, and trade matters involving Mexico, and he has been published extensively on transportation and trade issues.)

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Look at the positive side

By Lily Castillo

Here's looking at all of you baby boomers experiencing the golden years of life, or to quote Frank Sinatra, experiencing "The autumn of your life." Are you ready to be raked into a mediocre existence? As a fellow baby boomer, I say, "No Way!" Until now, and I use the term "now" loosely, responsibilities claimed priority over dating my spouse, dining with friends, shopping leisurely, and fulfilling my lifetime dream of writing. Father Time reintroduced these simple pleasures into my life recently, and I must say I savor them. So, I have a few wrinkles and gray hairs, varicose veins and arthritic joints. I view them as signs of life, not age, shared by most, if not all baby boomers. Realistically speaking, who wants to live the picture-perfect life of a robotic "Stepford Wife?" B-o-r-i-n-g!!!
Looking at the bright side of getting older, we baby boomers fulfilled the responsibilities that came with the diverse hats we wore over the years. We survived the perils of growing up from childhood bugs to cruel kids bugging us, the awkwardness of adolescence from being too skinny or too fat, breaking out with acne just before a big date, or being a wallflower at a dance. As young adults in high school and college, we saw firsthand how hippies rebelled against the establishment by participating in sit-ins to promote their causes, marijuana became a household word, LSD, a powerful hallucinogen, gained popularity as a creativity booster, and the Vietnam War threatened our faith in America and its leaders as it took the lives of our loved ones.
Life transformed us over the years into spouses, parents, confidantes, colleagues, teachers and writers, and any mistakes we made, we chalked up to experience and grew in wisdom.
"We've come a long way, baby," as glamorized in magazine ads for women, but this is just as true for men who no longer exist just to work for their families. Life isn't over yet! As sung in Bye, Bye Birdie, "We've places to go, people to see," and there's no time to mope around to the tune of "yesterday, when I was young." God willing, tomorrow still awaits us. The hard knocks of life paved the way, and at least for now, some smooth sailing is in the forecast. "Bon voyage," my fellow baby boomers! Live life to the fullest!

(Lily Castillo, a participant of the South Texas Writing Project, is a 26-year veteran teacher. After 25 years in Laredo elementary and middle schools, she joined the Vidal M. Treviño School Communications and Fine Arts as a creative writing and English teacher.)