AUSTIN, November 22 - U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has joined border mayors and lawmakers in the push to get an enhanced driver’s license pilot program started to ease congestion at land ports on the Texas-Mexico border.

In a letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Tuesday, Cornyn, R-Texas, asks for a status report on the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that Gov. Rick Perry, on behalf of the state, is entering into with the Department of Homeland Security.

“I would like to know when you anticipate signing the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Governor Rick Perry to pilot an enhanced driver’s license (EDL) for U.S. citizens,” Cornyn wrote.

“I support this pilot program and believe it will facilitate the ability of U.S. citizens to quickly meet the new WHTI requirements.”

The WHTI is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), a homeland security measure passed by Congress in 2004. Under WHTI, the government is ending the routine practice of accepting oral declarations of citizenship alone at land and sea ports for U.S. citizens returning from Mexico, Canada, and Bermuda. Instead, U.S. passport or other documents approved by DHS must be shown.

An enhanced driver’s license not only denotes identity and citizenship, but also has responds to the operational concerns of U.S. Customs and Border Protection by having compatible technology and security criteria.

Chertoff has been pushing the concept of an enhanced driver’s license as an alternative form of ID to a passport for over a year. Some states have already entered into MOAs with DHS. The first to do so was the state of Washington, which, in March, signed an MOA with DHS in March to develop; issue, test and evaluate an enhanced driver’s license and identification card. Washington state officials want enhanced driver’s licenses in place by the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, so that American tourists visiting the event can get back into the country without any hassle.

Within days of reading about Washington State’s plan, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, filed legislation to introduce an enhanced driver’s license pilot program in Texas. It quickly won support from the Texas Border Coalition (TBC), an advocacy group comprising cities, counties and economic development corporations from El Paso to Brownsville.

Under Shapleigh’s bill, the new licenses would include radio frequency ID chips and other advanced security features. Shapleigh said that not only would the new licenses be less vulnerable to forgery but also, at about $40, less expensive than a $97 passport.

“Our border is the most vibrant region of the hemisphere with over 68 million legal crossings a year. With passport requirements coming soon, we need to make secure, fast crossings work for all who live and work in our region,” Shapleigh said, in support of his bill.

Shapleigh’s bill was quashed thanks to behind the scenes lobbying by the Texas Department of Public Safety and Perry’s office. However, Shapleigh succeeded in getting the provision attached to SB 11, the major homeland security bill of the session.

Perry passed SB 11 into law in June but made a point of expressing concern about the enhanced driver’s license provision.

“Although I am signing this bill, it is important to point out the provision in Senate Bill No. 11 which allows the Department of Public Safety to create an enhanced driver's license to cross the Texas/Mexico border,” Perry said at the time.

“This provision conflicts with current federal law which states that a United States passport must be used to cross international borders. While frequent travelers to Mexico argue that the use of a passport creates an unnecessary burden, this is not a decision to be made at the state level.”

Perry said he would ask for an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s office in order to “clarify this issue for the state.” The request for an opinion came from Col. Thomas A. Davis, Jr., director of DPS.

On Wednesday, Perry spokesperson Krista Moody acknowledged that Perry and Chertoff were in communication over the enhanced driver’s license pilot program but said it was too early to say if an MOA would be signed.

“Steps still need to be taken,” Moody said, before Perry agrees to it. Perry agrees with the values expressed by the Attorney General’s office, she said. “He thinks it's a worthwhile program, but he needs assurances that it falls within the scope of federal law,” Moody said.

She said Attorney General Greg Abbott is focusing on whether the program will meet federal passport requirements before they can decide whether it is lawful.

At meetings of Perry’s Border Security Council in October, Steve McCraw, Texas’ homeland security director, said he backed the enhanced driver’s license pilot program.

TBC Chairman Chad Foster said he could not understand why the pilot program was not in place already. He said it could hardly be because of cost, noting that the pilot program could probably be implemented for $3 million.

“The enhanced driver’s license legislation has been sitting on the Governor’s desk for months now. We want to know if he supports us on this,” Foster said.

Foster pointed out that Perry has been allocated $100 million by the legislature for border security measures and is planning to spend $3 million on border security cameras.

“We hope that those cameras are not duplicating what Border Patrol is doing,” Foster said. “We would like to see some of the discretionary money he has put into this pilot program.”

Foster said he wanted to thank Senators Cornyn and Shapleigh for their work promoting the enhanced diver’s license program. He said he would thank Shapleigh personally at a TBC meeting in El Paso next Wednesday.

“We appreciate Senator Shapleigh’s leadership and all he is doing for the state of Texas on border issues,” Foster said.

Shapleigh held a teleconference meeting with TBC Immigration Committee Co-Chair Monica Weisberg-Stewart this week to discuss the enhanced driver’s license pilot program and other border issues. He said he hoped Cornyn could speed up the signing of the MOA.

“If the U.S. and Canada can agree on the need for enhanced driver’s licenses, so can Texas,” Shapleigh said. “Texas has 1,200 miles of border with Mexico and handles 80 percent of all trade with Mexico. That exceeds all our trade with the European Union.”