Transportation Department Called On Carpet By Senate On Mexican Trucks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8121

The Department of Transportation came under fire by Senator Byron Dorgan on Tuesday over a controversial “pilot program” that allows Mexican trucks to operate on US roads. Jesse Russell reports:

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday Senator Byron Dorgan told Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters that he regretted his previous support of her nomination to the post. He told Peters that her decision to move forward with a pilot program that allows Mexican trucks to use U.S. roads even after the Senate voted in September to prohibit the DOT from using any funds for the project was “arrogant” and a “slap in the face to Congress.”

: You have a responsibility here and you will meet it one way or another because failure to meet your responsibility under the law will bear consequences.

Dorgan, along with other Senators, has charged that the DOT is in violation of the Antideficiency Act which prevents federal officials from spending money not appropriated by Congress. The Teamsters have also brought a suit against the DOT and Peters said that the DOT will continue with the program and appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. At the end of the hearing it was clear that Dorgan was still unimpressed with the answers provided by Peters.

: It angers me even more having had this discussion because I believe government workers when people of good faith are doing what they believe to be right and I believe that is not the case with the Department of Transportation.