WASAHINGTON -- The motorcoach industry may join the growing chorus of opposition to a plan that would require bus and truck drivers and other travelers to have passports when journeying between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The United Motorcoach Association plans to consider the issue when its board meets later this month at Motorcoach Expo 2006 in Tampa, Fla.

A UMA board member from New York said his drivers have been told they will have to have passports by the end of next year to travel between the U.S. and Canada.

The federal government has pending a plan that requires passports for all travel across U.S. borders. The plan is part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, an outgrowth of the U.S. Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

As the plan currently stands, passports would be required for all air and sea travel to and from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda by the end of this year. The requirement would be extended to all land border crossings at the end of next year.

A number of business organizations, including the American Trucking Associations, are asking that when the federal government implements the initiative it accept forms of identification other than passports for commercial drivers traveling between the three countries.

Requiring commercial vehicle drivers and others to carry passports to go back and forth between the United States, Canada and Mexico would make international business more expensive and cumbersome for motor carriers, say critics of the idea. The trucking industry is particularly worried that it could dissuade independent U.S. truck drivers from transporting freight into Canada and Mexico.

Currently, obtaining a new U.S. passport costs $97 for adults and takes from six to eight weeks. At nearly $100 a pop, a motorcoach operator that regularly runs coaches across either border could end up making a substantial investment in passports.

The Bush Administration reportedly is studying alternative forms of identification and may have a new proposal this spring, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said last month.
One idea that has been floated is a new form of identification that would be easy to obtain and carry.
Some of the opposition to requiring passports for anyone crossing the Canadian frontier is coming from Canadians. In British Columbia, the premier, Gordon Campbell, has been quoted as saying that requiring passports to cross land borders "will do very serious damage to our tourist industry and the tourist industry of Washington state."

Campbell and the governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire, have asked President Bush to develop a border-crossing card.

Tightening travel requirements in and out of the U.S. are part of the post-9/11 effort to strengthen security along the vast and porous U.S. borders.