Steve Clark | The Brownsville Herald
U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, invited a few of his colleagues from Congress down to South Texas for a fact-finding tour and gave them plenty to chew on.
The junket started in Weslaco on Thursday with a school superintendents roundtable discussion, followed by a U.S.-Mexico water treaty petition brief and border trade press conference before lunch on Friday.
Friday’s border trade press conference turned out to be more of an informal chat with reporters. No one sat down. No one actually took the podium. Nevertheless, Vela addressed one of his key issues: eliminating restrictions to border trade.
Vela said he’s been working with Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and officials with Cameron County and other border counties on legislation that would open the door to U.S. Customs and Border Protection combining its resources with local governments and private entities for the purpose of encouraging more cross-border trade.
More bridge traffic equals more revenue from those bridges and, indirectly, for local economies. The legislation would target passenger as well as commercial traffic facilities.
“When we talk about immigration reform we hear a lot about the pathway to citizenship,” Vela said. “We hear a lot about border security, but what’s missing is a conversation about border trade.”
Mexico is Texas’ number one trading partner, with trade of roughly $6 million a year, he said.
Cuellar, joined by Vela and Texas congressmen Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, introduced the Cross-Border Trade Enhancement Act of 2013 in the U.S. House of Representatives months ago. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced an identical bill in the U.S. Senate.
The legislation would get rid of a federal prohibition that prevents CBP from accepting any non-federal funding.
While that legislation is pending, CBP in the interim has implemented a pilot program that includes the South Texas Consortium Assets, which includes the city of Brownsville and Cameron County.
Bridge administrator Pete Sepulveda Jr. said the pilot program, which requires passage of the trade-enhancement act, is meant to address historically understaffed bridges on the southwest border of the United States.
It’s not uncommon for half a bridge’s primary inspection lanes to be closed because of inadequate staffing, he said. “Once we have an agreement in place with CBP, we can fund overtime for customs to man all their primary lanes adequately,” Sepulveda said.
The overtime would only be necessary during peak traffic periods and CBP has all the statistics on that, Sepulveda said. “Especially during holidays, it’s not abnormal to have a two, two-and-a-half hour waiting time to come into the United States because of the amount of traffic,” he said. “So during those times we also have the ability to provide that overtime funding so that all the lanes stay open and the waiting time is reduced.”
Sepulveda said he believes the legislation would also allow for the addition of four more passenger vehicle lanes at Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates through a partnership with CBP. Los Tomates recently opened new commercial truck lanes that have dramatically reduced wait times, he said.
Vela’s South Texas junket wraps up Saturday with an immigration forum in Port Isabel, with Cuellar, Gallego and O’Rourke slated to attend along with Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.
Vela said the tour was about sharing with his colleagues issues that are close to his heart as a member of Congress.
“I think it’s important for me to build relationships with my fellow congressional representatives, but it’s also important to see firsthand the issues that I talk to them about when we’re in Washington,” he said.“It kind of comes to life when they come down to South Texas and see what a great place it is. The purpose is to make sure they get to see South Texas.”
