San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Biden hits brakes on Texas-Mexico bridges
In Texas, we know what an important trading partner Mexico is with the United States.
Last year alone, the value of goods traded between our two countries was $779 billion. Many bridges that are essential to this trade are in South Texas. We have to ensure they can keep up with demand. Currently, they can't. At some bridges, trucks sit for hours releasing emissions into the air as they wait to cross the border instead of quickly moving goods to their destinations.
The city of Laredo and the counties of Cameron, Maverick and Webb want to build crossborder bridges or expand existing ones to make trade and travel faster. These infrastructure projects would help create jobs, reduce supply chain challenges and improve the environment in South Texas. They also have bipartisan support.
Unfortunately, these economically critical projects are being unnecessarily held up by bureaucratic roadblocks in Washington, D.C.
By law, no bridge connecting the United States with a foreign country may be built without the approval of the U.S. president. The president can seek the advice and recommendation of the secretary of state and others when making a decision on international bridges. Under a presidential executive order, the State Department has 60 days to make such a recommendation.
In the case of multiple crossborder bridge projects in Texas, the Biden administration has brought the presidential permit process to a standstill. The administration is requiring the projects to jump through environmental policy hoops before Secretary of State Antony Blinken can give his recommendation to Biden.
This makes no sense.
During the last administration, presidential permits could be granted for cross-border bridge projects — and two were in Texas — on condition the projects complete required environmental reviews before starting construction. This streamlined the process so local officials could plan and finance projects in a timely manner rather than being held in limbo.
No environmental shortcuts were taken under this approach — the federal agencies with jurisdiction still conducted an environmental review before a project was allowed to start.
The current administration reversed this process by requiring lengthy and costly environmental reviews to be finished before granting a presidential permit. This is an unnecessary bureaucratic roadblock, which leads to delays and uncertainty that harm economic growth, particularly in the South Texas communities that stand to benefit the most from these bridge projects and the trade they will facilitate.
Expanding the bridge capacity across South Texas would attract significant investment in the region and support much-needed economic development, which is why studies, community resolutions and numerous letters show broad local and regional support for building these cross-border bridges. And “if no improvements are made,” according to the Texas Department of Transportation, “border delays will result in economic productivity loss of $4.4B in 2050, reducing GDP by $116B” in both the United States and Mexico.
That's why we worked to bring together a bipartisan coalition, including every Democratic and Republican member of South Texas' congressional delegation, to change this process. In the Senate, we included legislation to require the administration to expedite permitting decisions in the annual defense bill, which the Senate passed with overwhelming support on July 27. In the House, we included similar legislation in a key spending bill. These were major victories, and we're going to keep working until they are signed into law.
These bridges have the potential to facilitate thousands and thousands of high-paying jobs that will result in billions of dollars of new economic activity. That would be good for Texas farmers, ranchers, businesses and manufacturers, all of whom could move their goods to market faster and with lower transportation costs and delays, which would help consumers.
Further, these bridges would enhance our national security by helping us move more manufacturing out of China and either here to the United States or to Mexico. These bridges would also benefit the environment, allowing trucks to move instead of sitting in traffic for hours spewing pollution.
Changing the permitting process and getting these bridges built will benefit South Texas, the Lone Star State and the country.
Ted Cruz, a Republican, is a U.S. senator for Texas and the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, represents the 28th Congressional District of Texas. He is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.