Supreme Court to hear Mexican truck issue April 21

The U.S. Supreme Court April 21 will wrestle with a challenge by the Teamsters, its Oakland-based Local 70, the California Labor Federation and environmental groups – all of whom oppose the Bush administration’s decision to let Mexican trucks operate beyond U.S. border commercial zones, as NAFTA allows.

The unions and environmentalists say DOT must prepare an environmental impact statement about the pollution risk created by the Mexican trucks.

The San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the unions. It banned the trucks nationwide until Bush's DOT obeys. Bush took the case to the Supreme Court in Department of Transportation vs. Public Citizen et al.

The administration says the environmental impact statement interferes with President Bush’s power to conduct foreign policy and violates NAFTA. The unions say NAFTA ratification did nothing to alter obligations under the Clean Air Act for an environmental impact statement.

California's attorney general, the unions noted, called the Mexican trucks "a significant new source of pollution" in a state struggling to meet clean air standards.