WASHINGTON – Two years after a Democratic Congress cancelled the Bush administration’s Mexican truck cross-border program, President Obama’s Dept. of Transportation has announced it will launch a similar pilot project.

DOT Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled a "concept document" for allowing once again for select Mexican trucks to cross the border beyond the 20-mile commercial restriction zone.

The plan, which needs congressional approval, would give a limited number of Mexican trucks access to the U.S. market.

A formal proposal is expected to be announced in the coming months.

Very similar to Bush’s demonstration project, though, Mexican carriers and their drivers under the new blueprint would be vetted by U.S. officials; their safety programs and traffic records would be reviewed and each vehicle would be inspected and certified by highway safety and environmental officials.

Similar safeguards weren’t enough for unions and other groups who lobbied Congress in 2008 to cut off funding for the previous program. They saw the program a threat to American jobs and went so far as to say that Mexican trucks would make the roads unsafe.

The Mexican government responded to the cancellation by slapping tariffs on 99 U.S. imports, including pork, cheeses, and fruits. (Mexican officials say the tariffs will be lifted once its government approves the details of the latest plan).

It’s probably not a coincidence that the announcement was delayed until after the mid-term elections, which saw sweeping changes in Congress and some of the program’s fiercest critics and Big Labor supporters lost their seats.

Industry reaction to the latest development was typical.

The American Trucking Associations, which supported the previous program, welcomed the news, while the Teamsters and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association – strong opponents – criticized the DOT’s decision.

OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said that Mexico is "bullying" the U.S. into letting its carriers have full access to U.S. lanes.

"Mexico’s regulatory standards aren’t even remotely equivalent to what we have in the U.S.," he said. "If a new cross-border trucking program were implemented in the near future, U.S. truckers would be forced to forfeit their own economic opportunities while companies and drivers from Mexico, free from equivalent regulatory burdens, take over their traffic lanes."

Teamsters President Jim Hoffa said in a statement that opening the border would increase drug trafficking.