Speech #1050060522

I have introduced legislation along with Senator BOXER in the other body to establish a $500 million border infrastructure fund to pay for these improvements to try to make sure that we realize the potential of the international trade that the passage of NAFTA and other actions have caused. Let me just give my colleagues a couple of examples of what I am talking about. By Federal order. all of the commercial truck traffic between California and Mexico goes through what we call the Otay Mesa. a border crossing which is in my district. Something like 3.000 trucks a day now traverse across the border through the border crossing. and yet there is no highway of interstate standards that connects that highway. connects that border crossing with our interstate highway system. At first we only had a twolane city street. it has been enlarged to four lanes and soon to six lanes. but it cannot handle the 3.000 trucks a day that NAFTA and other actions by this body have created. It is time that the Federal Government address the infrastructure problems that have burdened the city and county of San Diego as we contribute our part to increasing international trade and growing the economy in this Nation.