The Department of Transportation is making it easier to quantify its performance by including in its 2000 budget proposal a series of goals.

The railroad industry is not pressing for reductions in truck sizes or weights, nor is it taking a position on proposals to transfer jurisdiction over truck safety from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Trucking leaders swapped scarce information last week about their new chief regulator, Julie Cirillo (pictured). On Jan. 21, Cirillo was appointed associate administrator for motor carriers at the Federal Highway Administration. Since then, the department has released little information about her views.

The Arkansas Legislature last week began considering a proposed $575 million bond for an Interstate repair program that would be partially financed by a three-cents-per-gallon increase in the state diesel fuel tax.

The Department of Transportation last week announced plans for a National Transportation Safety Conference.

In an attempt to heal a rift with a key lawmaker, American Trucking Associations President Walter McCormick met Jan. 28 with Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee.

More than 15 state trucking association executives are scheduled to meet Jan. 31 in Dallas to discuss the future of their organizations and their relationship with American Trucking Associations.

The new chairman of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is former Ohio governor George Voinovich, who supported giving responsibility for the federal highway program to the states.

Associate Federal Highway Administrator George Reagle last week was transferred from his job as head of the Office of Motor Carriers, at least in part because he orchestrated a lobbying campaign against transferring the office to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Office of Motor Carriers’ new leader is a virtual unknown to trucking.