WASHINGTON, (June 7, 2004) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the Bush administration can skip a lengthy environmental impact study and open the country’s highways to Mexican trucks as soon as it wishes.

The court ruled that President Bush has the authority to open the border without a study. It rejected arguments by U.S. labour, consumer, and environmental organizations that have long fought expansion of Mexican trucking to the U.S., despite a guarantee the country made when it signed the North American Free Trade Agreement more than a decade ago.

The groups — including Public Citizen and the Teamsters union — won a ruling from the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year that forced the Department of Transportation to study at length the air quality impact from Mexican trucks. The Bush administration said it would comply with that order, but in the meantime also appealed to the Supreme Court.

The DOT had already begun the $1.8 million study and is expected to complete it soon. However, because the study could only delay, not prevent, the border opening, the ruling effectively allows Bush to expedite clearance to Mexican trucks almost immediately.

Currently, most trucks bringing freight to the United States from Mexico are allowed no farther than commercial zones along the border, where they transfer freight to U.S. trucks and return. Mexican trucks have been banned from operating on other U.S. highways for more than 20 years.

Under NAFTA, Mexican trucks were to have gained full access to U.S. roads beginning in 2000. But the Clinton administration refused to grant them entry. The Bush administration ordered the opening of all U.S. roads to Mexican trucks in 2002, but the dispute has since been tied up in courts.