Ron Amundson’s Political Blog

demonstration is removed in the Omnibus spending bill. Yep, the Bush administrations program was costing the taxpayers $346,000 every time a recorded participating truck traveled beyond the border zone. Some stats from the inspector generals report based upon the first years result.

Only 1,443 of 12,516 (11.5 percent) trips that FMCSA recorded were identified as going beyond the commercial zone.

Only 29 of 100 projected Mexican carriers were admitted to the project and 2 of those carriers have since withdrawn. This level of participation is not adequate to yield statistically valid findings. Only 1188 of a projected 540 trucks have participated.

Granted, this was a demo program, so the costs will be quite high, and participation will be low… but egads, not that high. Then add in the participation was so low as to not create much for statistically relevant results… this is pork to the max and then some. I have no problem with trying out programs, and having them fail, that will happen, its expected… but this is far beyond that, and worse, not even the US Chamber of Commerce who sees pork to the max in the Omnibus bill seems to be suggesting this program be put down… it just doesn’t add up. Of course, its not pork if it benefits you or the firms paying you to lobby them. The Washington Post has an interesting article on this as well, as to who is for it, and who is not.

The inspector generals report states:
We are recommending that FMCSA determine the minimum number of Mexican carriers that must participate in the demonstration project to yield statistically valid results and develop a plan to meet this level of participation as needed, develop and implement a new quality control plan to provide assurance that all Mexican trucks are checked at the border, and conduct a cost/benefit analysis to evaluate the benefits of renewing GPS services.

Should that not have been done ahead of time? And as soon as it wasn’t matched, why were their not provisions in place to kill the project as non-viable? Granted the participants would take a loss if the program ended early, otoh a cost and risk sharing type of program could have mitigated much of that. Ie a surcharge on US businesses and brokers utilizing the trucks in the program, such that the Mexican carriers could be reimbursed if it ended early. Of course, ideology likely got in the way… and in fairness program risk sharing, might well have biased the results, but just in reading the reports, there is bias all over the place. It is a bear to sort through.

This is an interesting statement:
Far more Mexican carriers were operating legally beyond the border commercial zones than were in the demonstration project, including carriers operating within specific states or anywhere in the United States under pre-NAFTA provisions, and within border commercial zones. Vehicle out-of-service rates for these carriers were higher than the rate for demonstration project carriers. Only the project participants were subject to the pre-authorization safety audit.

At least the Omnibus bill puts an end to this porker…