The following is excerpted from today’s article by Buffalo News.
The federal government is considering imposing a fee on passenger vehicles and pedestrians crossing the Canadian and Mexican borders.
The Department of Homeland Security suggested studying the imposition of such a fee in its fiscal 2014 budget proposal, which was released last week. But the idea attracted little notice until Thursday, when Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, lashed out at the idea as a potential killer of cross-border business…
Not much is known about exactly what the border fee would entail. Sy Lee, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the study would take a look at how much the fee might be.
A land border levy would not be the first such fee that Homeland Security has imposed on travelers, however. Airline passengers currently pay a $2.50 security fee, which is incorporated into ticket prices, every time they step onto a plane.
…in her written testimony for the hearing, Napolitano indicated that collecting some sort of fee at land borders would help pay for America’s massive effort to patrol its borders…
Nevertheless, any effort to impose a land border fee is likely to face stiff opposition on both sides of the border.
The Canadian government, which only recently teamed with the Obama administration on a “Beyond the Border” plan to ease border traffic and promote trade, appears less than thrilled about the fee idea...
Ron Rienas, general manager of the Peace Bridge, agreed. He said that much of that damage would happen on the American side, since 75 percent of those who crossed the Peace Bridge in the first three months of the year were Canadians bound for Buffalo.
In addition, the idea of a federal border fee raises huge logistical issues, Rienas said.
Homeland Security officials have not indicated whether the fee would be charged on traffic entering America or leaving it, although Higgins’ office presumes it would be collected at the points of departure from the U.S., since that’s where U.S. customs agents are stationed.
It’s also unclear whether customs agents would collect the new fee or if the toll-takers at the various border bridges would do it. But in either case, at the Peace Bridge, the only infrastructure for doing so is on the U.S. side of the bridge for people entering Canada.
Higgins said he was most worried, though, that any kind of fee would discourage cross-border travel and that fees would be collected at the Canadian border to subsidize the federal government’s much more expensive security operations at the Mexican border…
This article is available in its entirety at: http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130419/CITYANDREGION/130419072/1010 (subscription may be required).