(North Dakota U.S. Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer and other U.S. senators are asking President Joe Biden to halt a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for truck drivers crossing the U.S.–Canadian border.
Biden’s mandate would affect all essential, nonresident workers crossing the U.S. borders by land.
Unless it is repealed, the mandate goes into effect Jan. 22. Canada has implemented a similar measure effective Jan. 15.
Fourteen Republican senators sent a letter to Biden on Friday, writing that the vaccination mandate could have “far-reaching consequences” and cost some truck drivers their jobs.
“Despite the good intentions underpinning this action, we fear that the imposition of vaccination mandates as a requirement to cross the land border will exacerbate the existing challenges facing our freight networks and supply chain, and could further fuel inflation and rising prices on top of what Americans are already seeing,” the senators wrote. “Our nation’s truck drivers worked diligently during the pandemic to facilitate critical cross-border freight movements that helped to feed and clothe American communities.”
About 14,000 trucks cross the U.S.–Canada border daily with more than $846 million in goods, the senators wrote.
The senators encouraged Biden to speak to Canadian officials about any vaccination mandates involving foreign truck drivers.
“While both countries intend to impose vaccine requirements on foreign truck drivers, neither country has imposed such a requirement on solo truck drivers who operate domestically,” the senators wrote. “Since the onset of the pandemic, drivers have traversed the vast expanses of the U.S. and Canada safely, with a low COVID-19 transmission rate, due to the fact that commercial truck drivers spend the majority of their workday alone in the cab and outside.”
Trucking industry groups on both sides of the border said the mandate could have a big effect. About 22,000 Canadian truck drivers would be affected by the mandate, according to a news release by the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
Truck drivers should be exempt from vaccination mandates because they are alone in their cabs or outside during their workdays, industry group American Trucking Associations said in a news release in November.
