Anyone familiar with the Dallas Morning News' award-winning series last year on the dangerous 18-wheelers plying Texas highways understands that our truckers have lots of room for improvement. For them to label Mexico's trucking industry as too unsafe for U.S. highways is hypocritical at best and statistically dubious.

But that hasn't stopped the Teamsters president, James Hoffa, from amping up the hysteria about the "dangerous" Mexican trucks heading our way under a NAFTA pilot program. Others warn that Mexican truckers will help smuggle illegal immigrants. Environmental groups are piling on as well.

On Web sites and blogs, they paint an image of tequila-swilling Mexicans swerving their overloaded, smoke-belching 18-wheelers across our interstate highways, taking aim at soccer moms in minivans full of children.

This is not a migration issue, nor is it about dangerous Mexican truckers on U.S. highways. It's about organized labor invoking Americans' worst fears to protect jobs and undermine the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The time for this debate was during negotiations before NAFTA became law in 1994. Negotiators long ago concurred that it wasted time and money to transfer cargo from one truck to another at the border when a properly certified truck and driver from the originating country were capable of door-to-door delivery.

Successive Democratic and Republican administrations have supported requirements for Mexican truckers to meet rigid standards for safety, licensing, insurance and a written and oral understanding of English.

Sen. John Cornyn shares our concern at the latest attempt to stall NAFTA. The Texas Republican stated last week, "The United States has a legal requirement to begin to allow Mexican commercial trucks to travel throughout the United States. . . . If the United States does not abide by its legal requirements, economic penalties can be leveled at U.S. businesses and exports, which will harm Texas jobs."

We fully expect the debate, the lawsuits and congressional blocking actions to continue. That's politics. But invoking the worst stereotypes and scare-mongering tactics is a shameful way to fight.

— The Dallas Morning News

Congressional leaders are finalizing a bill that could dramatically increase the number of U.S. children who have health care coverage. This is a worthy cause, considering that more than 9 million children are uninsured.There is no time to waste, either. Congress and the president have until Oct. 1 to say Yes to the bill. That's when the federal program that insures 6 million needy children will expire.The deadline isn't the only hurdle. President Bush has threatened to veto the bills passed in the House and Senate. Worse, there may not be enough votes in the House to override a veto. If the program is to be saved and expanded, there must be successful negotiations with the White House.The bill would reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which gives matching funds to states that, in turn, insure children of modest means.The House and Senate compromise measure would increase annual funding to $12 billion from the current $5 billion. This could provide health coverage for an additional 4 million children, most of whom already are eligible for Medicaid or state programs.In contrast, President Bush would allocate less money. His funding increase of $1 billion a year wouldn't pay for the children currently enrolled in the state programs.The compromise measure would:• Drop House provisions on Medicare payments that are objectionable to the White House.• Adopt the Senate financing plan, which would raise the cigarette tax to $1 a pack. This would discourage smoking.• Preserve states' flexibility to set income-eligibility standards. This is critical given recent estimates that 700,000 children who lost coverage last year came from families with incomes between $40,000 and $80,000.The final bill should also end an inequity. It should include 750,000 legal-immigrant children otherwise eligible for coverage who are now excluded because they aren't citizens.President Bush says the bill would expand "government-run health care." Ironically, this is exactly what he has endorsed with Medicare's prescription-drug and managed-care plans that cost $90 billion annually.The federal-state partnership has bipartisan support from governors nationwide for good reason. The insurance crisis would be worse without it. Our children deserve better — a healthy start in life.<B><I>— The Miami Herald</I></B>