The Supreme Court agreed December 15 to review a case involving the environmental impact Mexican trucks would cause when allowed to enter the United States, according to information from the Teamsters and Public Citizen, groups involved in the issue. The Supreme Court review was requested by the Department of Transportation (DOT) after a California appeals court ordered DOT to conduct environmental impact studies.
In January, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco issued the ruling in response to a lawsuit filed in May 2002 by a coalition of environmental, consumer and labor groups, including Public Citizen, the Teamsters, California Federation of Labor, the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF), the California Trucking Association, and Brotherhood of Teamsters, Auto and Truck Drivers, Local 70.
After the California court ruling, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) awarded a $1.8 million contract to ICF Consulting, Fairfax VA, to prepare a fully developed environmental impact statement that analyzes the short- and long-term environmental impacts of Mexican trucks operating beyond the border zones, according to earlier FMCSA information. FMCSA said then it expected to finish the analysis sometime between August of 2004 and February of 2005.