Government
Transport Topics government and regulatory coverage keeps managers of a highly-regulated industry aware of the policy decisions that can shape their businesses. Covering both the legislative and regulatory aspects of policy-making, at both the state and national levels, the news in this category includes looks at infrastructure, hours of service, emissions rules, funding measures, leadership appointments, and more. Readers can follow what’s happening in Congress, at the Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Administration, and in state and local governments.
Letters: Closed Rest Areas, Those Railroad Ads (Cont.), Diesel Prices, Road Tax, Honoring Covenants
Someone needs to read the article that was published about the truck driver shot and killed in Knoxville, Tenn.
April 6, 2009Reopening the Border
We’re pleased to see that President Obama’s administration is at work crafting a plan to reopen the United States to trucks from Mexico, as agreed to years ago when the North American Free Trade Agreement was ratified.
April 6, 2009Coast Guard to Review Biometric Devices in Bid to Make TWIC Cards More Secure
The U.S. Coast Guard is beginning to review how biometric devices should be added to federal transport security cards that are becoming mandatory for truckers and everyone else who wants access to secure port areas.
April 6, 2009Mid-States Ceases Operations
Four more trucking companies, including Chicago-area less-than-truckload carrier Mid-States Express Inc., have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest casualties of the continuing economic downturn and credit crunch.
April 6, 2009FedEx Wins Wash. State Class Action Suit over Classification of Drivers as Contractors
FedEx Corp. last week won a Washington state class action case that affirmed the company’s position on driver classification.
April 6, 2009After Chasing Criminals in Arizona, Dick Landis Came East to Tame Newly Deregulated Industry
PHOENIX — As an Arizona highway patrol officer for 14 years in the 1970s and ’80s, Dick Landis chased illegal immigrants, drunken college students, speeding motorists and even hardened drug dealers up and down just about every strip of concrete slicing through the state’s scalding, lonely desert.
April 6, 2009Accounting Boards Propose Rules Change That Could Alter Truck Leasing Industry
An accounting rules shift could trigger fundamental changes in a truck leasing market worth as much as $70 billion by reducing the attractiveness of renting equipment and reducing fleets’ access to debt.
April 6, 2009Diesel Price Jumps 13.1¢
U.S. retail diesel prices jumped sharply last week, a second straight bump that raised the national average a two-week total of 20.4 cents a gallon, or about 10%, as gasoline also rose, topping the $2 a gallon mark for the first time since November, according to the Department of Energy.
April 6, 2009Bill Aims to Cut Emissions with Cap-and-Trade Plan
Two senior House Democratic leaders last week introduced a sweeping greenhouse gas bill that includes a cap-and-trade program and would expand motor carriers’ use of SmartWay technologies.
April 6, 2009Budget Panels Reject Obama Proposal, Retain Highway Trust Fund Firewall
Budget committees in Congress have approved draft versions of spending-revenue plans for next year that reject an Obama administration proposal to remove the firewalls that have traditionally protected the Highway Trust Fund and other transportation-related funds.
April 6, 2009