Members of Mexico’s Lower House of Congress will present an initiative to amend the Federal Law of Highways and Bridges to provide for the installation of vehicle emission verification centers in the northern border zone of Mexico in order to put the brakes on the importation of “junk” (“chatarra”) vehicles whose mechanical conditions do not comply with applicable Mexican environmental standards. The initiative seeks to prevent such junk autos from transiting on Mexican federal highways. Mr. Salvador Romero Valencia, President of the Special Committee on the Automotive and Steel Industries in the Mexican Congress stated, “What we want to create with this initiative is a program to discard junk vehicles and foster the modernization of the country’s vehicular fleet and domestic market”. The President of Mexico’s Automotive Industry Association, Mr. Eduardo Solis, stated, “The intention is to stop the entry of imported vehicles from the United States which seriously limits the domestic market”. He also stated that controlling this flow of imports could cause the Mexican domestic automotive industry to increase its production by two million vehicles and could generate 3,000 additional jobs throughout the country.
