Members of Congress divided on border issue
Fort Erie truck plaza back in bridge debate
WASHINGTON — As the U. S. and Canadian governments work to find a way to build an expanded Peace Bridge between Buffalo and Fort Erie, Ont., they’re coping with a deep divide among local members of Congress over just how to do it.
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter continues to push the idea of “shared border management” — the move of the Peace Bridge truck plaza to Canada. And the Fairport Democrat, along with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has persuaded Obama administration officials to take a second look at that long-abandoned plan.
But Reps. Brian Higgins and Chris Lee say that would further delay a crucial project that already counts its delays in decades.
“This would bring us right back to where we were two years ago when shared border management was deemed to be dead,” said Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat whose district includes the Peace Bridge. “Western New York residents and businesses are sick of studies and setbacks, they just want to see a bridge built. This is a move in the wrong direction.”
Lee, a Clarence Republican, agreed.
“We’re beating a dead horse here,” he said. “We need to focus on the project at hand, which is to get a new Peace Bridge built.”
A day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano indicated a willingness to reconsider the move, Higgins and Lee last week wrote to Napolitano to warn her of their concerns.
But Slaughter insists that moving the plaza to Canada is the best option because it would save money while preventing the loss of West Side homes. She warns that building a new truck plaza in a historic neighborhood is a recipe for lawsuits that would further delay the bridge expansion.
“Simply put, shared border management is not delaying the Peace Bridge expansion project,” she said. “Shared border management not only presents the best possible solution to the security and legal issues facing a new Peace Bridge plaza, but also prevents the residents of the historic Peace Bridge neighborhood from being displaced.”
That has long been the argument that Clinton made, and thanks to her efforts and Slaughter’s, both the U. S. and Canadian governments are taking a fresh look at moving the Peace Bridge plaza to Canada.
Slaughter discussed it with Napolitano earlier this month. And Chris McCluskey, a spokesman for Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, said Van Loan and Napolitano talked about the idea when they met recently, as well.
They “discussed the issue in very general terms — for example, how to approach it and whether it was a good idea to examine it,” McCluskey said in an e-mail. “We did, however, gain a commitment to examine that issue again in the future.”
Higgins and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., once were proponents of shared border management, but they have been increasingly skeptical of the idea since the Bush administration abruptly called off negotiations with Canada over the issue in April 2007.
Higgins and Schumer grew even more skeptical after the Government Accountability Office issued a report last summer outlining the legal hurdles to putting a U. S. inspection facility in Canada. While the GAO said the two sides reached agreement on several key issues, including “the arming of CPB officers at the preclearance site on Canadian soil,” the agency said other legal obstacles remain. For example:
• Under Canadian law, U. S. law enforcement could not make arrests there.
• Canadian law allows people to leave border crossings after questioning if they choose not to cross the border, while under U. S. law, such people can be arrested.
• Canadian officials fingerprint people at the border only when they have been charged with a crime, while U. S. law allows agents to fingerprint anyone at the border.
• Canada and the United States have conflicting laws about when cargo can be searched without a warrant.
Schumer indicated that Canadian officials were unwilling to compromise on such issues during the earlier negotiations.
“It takes two to tango, and before we can move forward with some degree of confidence that down the road we could achieve this,” Schumer said, “we need the Canadians to be willing to do more than they have in the past.”
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