Bush keeps on truckin’

Isn’t it great that Congress can decide to cut the funding for the NAFTA pilot program for Mexico-based trucks and the Bush Administration can turn around and do whatever it wants? You can read about it in Dave Montgomery’s story “Mexican-truck ‘ban’ ignored” for McClatchy Newspapers.

The Department of Transportation says Congress decision had no bearing on the current pilot program — just new ones.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., scoffed at that interpretation and called on the Bush administration to end the program immediately.

“The DOT response is both arrogant and wrong!” Dorgan wrote in a letter Thursday to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. “The Department of Transportation is making a serious mistake if it believes it is not required to abide by this legislation.”

Public Citizen Joan Claybrook said the action is akin to spitting in the public’s face.

“This dubious interpretation isn’t just tortured logic — it’s a willful repudiation of the clear intent of Congress to end this pilot project. Congress has repeatedly and overwhelmingly denounced the flawed program as dangerous and unjustified,” Claybrook said.

You can read her statement on the Public Citizen site.

Public Citizen was one of several organizations that sued to block the pilot program. The groups sent a letter today to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.