It was the sixth increase in the last seven weeks, during which the diesel price has risen 17.7 cents. The latest price is $3.96. A year ago it was 38.7 cents higher.

Prices in all regions but one increased. The biggest increases were in California and the rest of the West Coast. California advanced 4.9 cents to $4.258, while the entire West Coast gained 4.3 cents to $4.164. The Lower Atlantic area rose 3.6 cents to $3.966.

The exception to higher prices was in the Midwest, where a gallon of diesel slipped 0.9-cent to $3.848.

The record diesel price was $4.764 in July 2008.

For diesel price information, click here ^[1].

Source: http://www.overdriveonline.com/national-diesel-price-climbs/

American Trucking Associations has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recently published hours-of-service rule and is likely to challenge specifically the rule’s 34-hour restart provision.

The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Feb. 14, asked the court to block implementation of the hours rule, which it said used flawed assumptions and analysis and is “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.”

In its lawsuit, ATA did not disclose specifically what provisions of the rule it would challenge.

ATA will make its “statement of issues” in a legal filing by March 15, said Richard Pianka, ATA’s deputy chief counsel.

However, ATA Chairman Dan England told Transport Topics that one of ATA’s legal challenges would include the rule’s requirement that, before starting a new workweek, a driver must take a 34-hour rest that must include two rest breaks, each from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.

“That’s the one that we’ve looked at and are most upset about,” said England, who is chairman of C.R. England Trucking Co., a Salt Lake City truckload carrier.

England said the rule’s restart provision would reduce the productivity of C.R. England’s 1,200-truck dedicated fleet by about 10% or more, requiring additional hours to complete the runs in dedicated lanes.

“It will also be significant in our other fleets, but it’s most significant in our dedicated fleet,” England added.

“It’s a sad state of affairs that we have to sue the FMCSA to try and retain our ability to be as productive as we have been,” England said. “We’re leading this economy out of a recession and doing it very well with a safety performance that’s been great.”

England said ATA also is concerned about a provision in the rule that would require truck drivers to take a 30-minute break before completing eight hours of driving.

Henry Jasny, general counsel of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, declined comment on the ATA lawsuit. The group had challenged the prior hours rule in federal court.

Jasny said his clients have not yet reached a decision on whether to challenge the current rule.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro, speaking at a Feb. 15 round table of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals in Washington D.C., declined to comment on ATA’s lawsuit but defended the agency’s hours-of-service proposal, saying the changes would reduce fatigue-related crashes.

“It’s a very good rule, well-written and documented,” she said.

Asked if the legal challenge would push back implementation, she said, “No. We’ll let the process work its way through.”

The agency has said the restart provision would affect only about 15% of trucking industry drivers.

But ATA President and CEO Bill Graves attacked the agency’s research and cost-benefit analysis as flawed.

“FMCSA’s own analyses show that, even when they overstate the safety benefits of these changes, the costs created by their rule still outweigh those benefits,” Graves said in a Feb. 13 statement. “We need this issue to be resolved in a credible manner, taking into account the undisputed crash reduction since 2004, so we can focus limited government and industry resources on safety initiatives that will have a far greater impact on highway safety.”

FMCSA’s Ferro steadfastly has defended the rule, saying that research indicates it has the potential to help drivers overcome cumulative sleep deprivation.

The agency has estimated that the rule will cost about $470 million annually while yielding benefits of about $630 million, producing a net benefit of $160 million a year.

But in his statement, Graves noted that the hours rules that have been in place since 2004 have contributed to an “unprecedented improvement in highway safety.”

“The law is clear about what steps FMCSA must undertake to change the rules, and we cannot allow this rulemaking, which was fueled by changed assumptions and analyses that do not meet the required legal standards, to remain unchallenged,” Graves said.

In addition to the restart provision, the new hours rule, announced in late December and set to take effect in July 2013, reduces total driver allowable hours to 70 from 82 per week.

The agency retained the 11 hours of driving provision, ultimately not moving forward with its prior expressed preference to reduce the daily limit to 10 hours.

The rule also limits the maximum driving window to 14 consecutive hours after drivers come on duty but allows drivers to work on tasks other than driving during the 14-hour window.

The fight in the federal courts over the hours-of-service rule dates back to 2003, when Annette Sandberg, then acting administrator of FMCSA, introduced a “final” hours-of-service rule that extended allowable driving hours to the current 11 from 10 but cut drivers’ overall workday to 14 from 15 hours.

That rule and a nearly identical hours rule issued in 2005 were both rejected by a federal appeals court. In 2008, another rule was challenged in court by Public Citizen, the Teamsters union and the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

In October 2009, the parties in the lawsuit agreed to give FMCSA another chance to issue a proposed hours rule.

That settlement, however, ended Feb. 8, when a federal judge dismissed the case following the publication in December of the new mandate for all interstate carriers.

The current proposed rule originally was to have been finished by July 26 but had been delayed twice.

Source: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/petemplate.aspx?storyid=28721

Southbound I-405 will be closed between I-605 and Valley View Street in Fountain Valley from midnight Feb. 21 to 5 a.m. Feb. 22. Southbound I-405 will also be closed between midnight and 5 a.m. from I-605 to Seal Beach Boulevard in Seal Beach nightly from Feb. 22 through Feb. 25, the OCTA said.

For alternate routes from the southbound I-405, exit Studebaker Road – stay in the right lane and go south on Studebaker Road, turn left on Westminster Avenue:

• To access the southbound I-405 freeway continue east on Westminster Avenue to access the SB I-405 on-ramp
• To access the eastbound SR-22 freeway continue east on Westminster Avenue and turn left on Goldenwest Street to access the eastbound SR-22 on-ramp.

From the southbound I-605 freeway, take the Spring Street exit and turn right, go west on Spring Street and turn left on Studebaker Road, turn left on Westminster Avenue:

• To access the southbound I-405 freeway continue east on Westminster Avenue to access the southbound I-405 on-ramp
• To access the eastbound SR-22 freeway continue east on Westminster Avenue and turn left on Goldenwest Street to access the eastbound SR-22 on-ramp.

Source: http://www.overdriveonline.com/i-405-lanes-to-close-in-orange-county/

The North American Council for Freight Efficiency has released the results of its first fleet fuel efficiency study, representing 75,000 OTR tractors and 130,000 53-ft trailers from eight fleets. The study highlights successful applications of products and practices that provide fuel savings during real-world usage. It analyzed the adoption of 60 known technologies and practices available to fleets over the past eight years.

Fleets participating in the study were C.R. England, Challenger Motor Freight, Con-way Truckload, Frito Lay, Gordon Trucking, Ryder, Schneider National and Werner Enterprises. To illustrate the scope of the study, in 2010, participating fleets ran a combined 3.1 billion miles and consumed 496 million gallons of fuel.

The goal of the study was to illustrate technology implementation experiences from uptake to full implementation — and in some cases rejection, and to identify best practices shared by these fleets in terms of how they manage their fuel expenses and take advantage of opportunities to reduce them.

The study also offers insights for others considering the adoption of these products (widebase single tires, trailer aero devices, anti-idle hardware, etc.) and practices (driver training, routing software, etc.) and gives feedback to manufacturers on customer requirements and expectations for future products. The report found that these fleets saved on average $4,400 per year or $22,000 in fuel expenses over five years.

“The economic value that the NACFE Fuel Efficiency study represents to us is significant as it provides specific ideas for execution as we continue to lower our fuel costs,” says Mike O’Connell, national senior director for fleet capability at Frito Lay, and NACFE board chair. “The environmental opportunities are equally exciting, and since our fleet is known for its environmental leadership, we look forward to receiving both economic and environmental benefits from this report.”

Fuel Economy Guinea Pigs

Fleets that took part in the study were all early adopters of various fuel savings practices and technologies, and they continue to profit today from those experiences. Some early adopters of certain technologies later rejected them as either too costly in terms of acquisition cost versus percentage of fuel saved, too expensive to maintain, or simply ineffective. Some later reintroduced previously abandoned technologies as subsequent generations of the product improved and became more cost effective.

While specific products or technologies were not identified during the press conference (savings accrued by individual fleets were not quantified for the study, just the adoption and retention rates), the study reveals very wide acceptance and retention of some technologies, while others were widely adopted by some fleets, but not others. Further, it was shown that acceptance and ramp up rates varied across participating fleets, indicating that while some found certain technologies useful, others did not.

“We tried to drill down to the actual “value” of each technology or practice as experienced by individual fleets, but found that to be too difficult within the structure of the study,” said O’Connell. “Instead, we chose to gauge the effectiveness of each by the fleets ramp-up and retention rates. That a fleet kept a certain technology in service was a signal that the fleet saw some value there.”

Among the study’s findings were:

~ When the study began in 2003, about 30 percent of the available technologies were adopted. Current adoption rates are significantly higher.

~ Between the time fuel peaked in 2008 and declined in 2009, fleets continued to invest in fuel saving technology and even increased their adoption of various technologies after fuel prices subsided.

~ Average fleet fuel economy showed a 2 to 3 percent decline during the period following the first round of EPA-mandated emissions reduction regulations, but in comparisons between adopters and non-adopters of various technologies between 2007 and 2010, fuel economy showed improvement in fleets with greater acceptance of fuel saving technology than those without.

As a stand-alone tool, the benchmarking study would be valuable to fleets lacking the resources of the very large participating fleets.

“I can tell you, fleet that don’t have the resources of a Werner or a Frito Lay could quickly apply some of the practices and technologies illustrated in the study and feel much more confident that they will work in their application,” says Steve Phillips, senior vice president of operations at Werner Enterprises and NACFE board member. “There are just so many products on the market today. Werner looked closely at the comparisons from the seven other peer fleets, and when we saw other fleets using technology we dropped, it made us ask a lot of questions about why some products worked here and not there, and vice versa. This study is a great way to take advantage of a lot of accumulated expertise.”

NACFE Academy

Dovetailing with the release of the benchmarking study report, NACFE will offer an online learning environment called the NACFE Academy, where industry personnel can learn about technologies and practices that are improving the efficiency of North American goods movement.

The Academy will be the Council’s virtual source for successful applications of new products and practices that provide fuel savings during real-world usage. Findings will include technology benefits, their specific applicability in real-world duty cycles, adverse consequences in use, and other important data.

“Through our unbiased approach to aggregating information on fuel efficient technologies, we are adding direct value to the fleets’ bottom lines and helping suppliers communicate the value of their offerings in the marketplace,” says NACFE Executive Director, Mike Roeth. “The NACFE Academy offers a creative, e-learning place for this information sharing.”

The initial report from the NACFE Academy, a 2011 Fleet Fuel Study, “Real Fleets. Real Experience” will be available as of February 20th as a document for download, as an online course and in a question-and-answer session with the study team in a small group webinar.

“The study can be purchased as a package that includes the report for download, an online course that will help bring the findings to life, data sets on adoption and a question-and-answer session with the Study team in a small group webinar,” Roeth says.

It can found on the NACFE Academy website at www.nacfe.org

Who is NACFE?

The North American Council for Freight Efficiency is a non-profit organization dedicated to doubling the freight efficiency of transportation industry by improving the quality of information available to members and by highlighting the success of high efficiency technologies.

Formed by Industry, NACFE’s mission is to:
- Help Define freight efficiency metrics
- Build and maintain easy-to-access to information
- Evaluate improvements to configurations and maintenance
- Develop new methods and gather information
- Rate technologies or methods
- Educate drivers and fleets
- Predict efficiency gains of combinations

For more information, contact Mike Roeth, Executive Director
Email: mike.roeth@nacfe.org
Phone: 260-750-0106
www.nacfe.org

Source: http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=76156&news_category_id=6

Fleet maintenance directors and their suppliers will return to Tampa, Fla., this week to discuss ever more complicated techniques for eking out new slender margins of efficiency to keep the nation’s trucks rolling down highways longer and more smoothly.

More than 300 exhibitors are expected to show off new products to what organizers say could be the largest group of attendees in more than a decade at the annual meeting and exhibition of American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council, scheduled for Feb. 20-23.

On the schedule, two federal officials — Byron Bunker, a director of the U.S. Environmental Agency’s vehicle and fuel emissions laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Jack Van Steenburg, chief safety officer at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration — will talk about the greenhouse gas emissions rule and sleep apnea-prevention devices for drivers.

Also, ATA Chairman Dan England will analyze maintenance experiences at his own com-pany — C.R. England Inc., Salt Lake City.

TMC also will install a new chairman for a one-year term as Lee Long of Southeastern Freight Lines, Lexington, S.C., succeeds Roy Gambrell of Truck It Inc., Franklin, Ky.

With almost 3,000 people expected at the meeting, Long said it will be the largest attendance at the annual event since 2000.

People unfamiliar with maintenance might dismiss the meeting as “minutiae,” said TMC Executive Director Carl Kirk, “but that’s what we do.”

Kirk said a steady stream of small improvements is how maintenance shops improve reliability and reduce costs. He cited fuel economy as an example.

“It is incremental measures that help improve fuel economy,” Kirk said, indicating that the engineers are trying to combine numerous small changes rather than discover a single blockbuster leap in technology.

Gambrell, a TMC member for more than 20 years, said a session on corrosion and electrical systems will be important. He said electrical currents magnify the damage done to metal by road de-icers such as salt and magnesium chloride.

“You often can’t repair these systems and have to replace them. This is an especially big problem because of CSA,” he said, referring to the federal Compliance, Safety, Accountability program, which started in December 2010.

Lights that do not work are frequently cited as a safety violation by roadside inspectors. This infraction can cause motor carriers and drivers to rack up points against their records.

Southeastern’s Long picked three sessions as particularly noteworthy: federal fuel-efficiency standards for 2014 and 2017 from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; the 2007/2010 engine report card; and a new, faster communications data bus.

The rule from EPA and NHTSA will limit the emissions of carbon-based greenhouse gases and set fuel-economy standards. EPA’s Bunker will speak about these concerns.

Gambrell agreed with Long on the session’s significance.

“What will we have to do because of this rule?” Gambrell asked. “Fuel and maintenance are the two biggest costs for us.”

The engine report card will update an event from two years ago. At the 2010 annual meeting, four large carriers summarized their own experiences with engines. At this meeting, participants will consider the results from TMC’s survey of its total membership.

“All of the fleets have gone through implementing this technology into our fleets, whether it is massive EGR or SCR technology,” Long said of the 2007 and 2010 engines. “The experiences and knowledge that will be provided during this session will allow insight into oddities of these new systems. Of particular interest will be the longevity of the aftertreatment systems.”

As for communications improvement, Kirk said the J1939 databus is the “spine” of the modern truck that allows components and systems to communicate with each other, the driver and, ultimately, the carrier’s offices — a process usually referred to as telematics. In two or three years, the system’s capacity to transmit data will double to 500 kilobaud from the current 250 kBd.

Kenneth DeGrant, an engineering manager with Dearborn Group Technologies, will brief the maintenance directors on the change. An earlier databus, J1708/J1587, could move information at a rate of 9,600 baud, DeGrant said, or less than 1/50 of the 500 kBd rate.

“The original system was similar to using a phone modem for downloading information,” said DeGrant, who has followed developments on the topic at meetings of SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers.

“There will be no new wiring or troubleshooting involved. It will be pretty much the same, except twice as fast,” said DeGrant, who added that the change will require some diagnostic hardware up-dates for connector cables and handheld scanners.

Demands for J1939 capacity are rising, DeGrant said, in part because of the 2010 change in engine technology. The EPA 2010 rule tightens emissions standards for nitrogen oxides and mandates more onboard diagnostic sensors to monitor engine emissions. The sensors work through J1939.

DeGrant said his presentation will be part of the Onboard Vehicle Electronics Study Group. “I’m trying to alleviate fear of the unknown,” he said.

FMCSA’s Van Steenburg will discuss ways to combat sleep apnea.

The exhibit hall has about 200,000 square feet of space for about 320 exhibitors, Kirk said. There also will be a full day of press conferences by exhibitors immediately preceding the meetings.

TMC is also known for its collections of Recommended Practices, or guidelines for how to perform truck maintenance. The council’s 12 permanent study groups meet in February and September, in person, and create temporary task forces to add or update RPs on maintenance and engineering topics, as needed.

An example, Kirk said, is RP 618 on “Wheel Bearing Adjustment Procedures.” That document gives instructions to technicians on how to use a manual torque wrench for setting a bearing. It establishes a target for end-play of 0.001 to 0.005 inch — a measurement approaching the thickness of one sheet of paper for a photocopy machine.

Michigan-based engineer Allan Hagelthorn has written to Kirk saying that, as a result of SAE research on the subject, it might be desirable for a TMC task force to consider additional criteria for bearing adjustment. A report by Hagelthorn said maintenance professionals also should consider pre-load force on the bearing and that the current end-play standard could well exert too much of that force on the bearing.

Source: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/printopt.aspx?storyid=28722

Loaded imported containers rose 5.3% from 2010, to almost 356,400 twenty-foot equivalent units, while exports rose 5.9% to just over 168,400 TEUs.

The port attributed some of the increase to higher cargo movement prior to the Jan. 23 start of the Chinese New Year, which results in a one- to two-week holiday closure of many facilities in China. Last year, the Chinese New Year began Feb. 3.

The Port of Los Angeles and neighboring Port of Long Beach make up the largest U.S. container port complex.

Source: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/printnews.aspx?storyid=28712

Federal regulators will not issue a final rule this year mandating electronic onboard recorders for nearly all interstate carriers, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokeswoman confirmed last week.

Instead, an FMCSA spokeswoman said, the agency probably will not even issue a supplemental — or second — proposed rule until “late 2012 or early 2013.”

The EOBR rulemaking process originally included a 2010 final rule for roughly 5,000 carriers with serious hours-of-service compliance violations, and a separate proposed rule issued in January 2011 for an estimated 500,000 interstate carriers.

The remedial EOBR final rule was originally set to take effect in June 2012 but was struck down in August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, which ruled FMCSA failed to ensure that the devices would not be used to harass truck drivers.

As a result, the agency in November dropped the remedial rule, and has sought to revise its proposed EOBR rule for interstate truckers.

FMCSA said it will, in effect, consolidate the two rules into a universal proposed mandate for nearly all interstate carriers with new language intended to address the courts’ driver harassment concerns.

The rulemaking delay was first mentioned in a speech earlier this month at the Mid-West Trucking Association convention in Peoria, Ill. On Feb. 3, FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro told conference attendees the agency would not issue an anticipated final EOBR mandate rule this year, according to Don Schaefer, executive director of the MWTA.

Speaking at a session of the Transportation Research Board last month, Ferro said FMCSA plans to schedule “listening sessions” to gather input for the proposed mandate (1-30, p. 16).

“We have an opportunity in the months ahead to do a series of listening sessions to learn more from drivers and carriers and others what is meant by ‘harassment’,” Ferro told TRB attendees.

The agency will incorporate technological recommendations from the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Board and other information it has gathered throughout the previous rulemakings, she said.

“We will work very aggressively to continue to advance an electronic onboard recorder rule that makes sense,” Ferro said.

Source: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/printopt.aspx?storyid=28678

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration decided to take a step back from its pending electronic onboard recorder rules and begin a supplemental process to resolve legal and technical problems.

Officially this will be known as a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but for simplicity call it EOBR3.

EOBR1 is the rule that would have required frequent hours of service violators to use EOBRs starting next July. It also outlined the technical standards of the rule.

EOBR2, which is still in progress, proposes to expand EOBR1 to include practically all carriers, and is supposed to answer questions about the technical standards in EOBR1.

But last August, EOBR1 was thrown out by an appeals court, which agreed with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association that rule failed to prevent the use of EOBRs to harass drivers, as is required by law.

And as the agency worked on EOBR2, it realized that there were technical issues in EOBR1 that still needed to be resolved.

So the agency now has decided that it needs to hold public listening sessions on the harassment issue and on the technical questions before proposing a revised rule. A schedule for the listening sessions will be available soon, the agency said in an announcement posted in yesterday’s Federal Register.

In addition, the agency has asked the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee to come up with recommendations on how to deal with the harassment question.

These recommendations will supplement the technical recommendations the committee made last month.

Source: http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=76075&news_category_id=3

The largest U.S. trucking group filed a legal challenge to Transportation Department driver- fatigue rules that the industry says focus on the wrong safety problems and don’t meet legal requirements.

The American Trucking Associations, based in Arlington, Virginia, filed a petition today challenging the regulation at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The group cited the Hobbs Act, a U.S. law that “prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion affecting interstate or foreign commerce,” according to the Justice Department’s criminal resources manual.

“We cannot allow this rulemaking, which was fueled by changed assumptions and analyses that do not meet the required legal standards, to remain unchallenged,” Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, based in Arlington, Virginia, said in a statement today.

While the final rule maintained an 11-hour limit on truckers’ driving day, instead of shortening it to 10 hours as proposed, the industry objects to a requirement of a 34-hour rest period each week that would require drivers to be off two consecutive nights, said Sean McNally, a spokesman for the trucking group.

Many more fatalities and injuries are caused by speeding than fatigue, making the department’s focus on driving hours misplaced, the group said in its statement. The industry supports regulations that would require installation of speed- limiting devices on trucks, the group said.

Restart Period

Werner Enterprises Inc. (WERN) and C.R. England are among trucking companies that have objected to a government requirement that the weekly time off include the periods between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on two consecutive days. Trucking companies describe the rest as a restart because it resets drivers’ weekly limits of time on duty.

The trucking regulator underestimated the cost of the restart requirement, McNally said. It will reduce flexibility and may undermine safety by forcing drivers onto the road during rush hour, he said.

The original proposal by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration required two 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. rest periods during the restart. Groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety had argued that loopholes in previous rules let drivers average 82 hours of work in seven days when they were supposed to be limited to 60 hours.

11 Hours

The trucking regulator is also facing criticisms from safety groups and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union for sticking with the 11-hour driving maximum. The government was sued in 2003, 2006 and 2009 for allowing 11-hour driving shifts. The third lawsuit was settled with an agreement that FMCSA would redo the regulation.

There were 3,675 truck-related fatalities in 2010, up 8.7 percent from 3,380 in 2009, according to preliminary data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As recently as 2006, there were 5,027 fatalities.

The hours-of-service rule as proposed in December 2010 was one of seven regulations President Barack Obama’s administration said would cost companies at least $1 billion. Trucking companies opposed it, saying the shorter hours would force them to rework routes and hire more drivers.

The final regulation, which takes effect July 1, 2013, has annual costs of about $470 million and benefits of around $630 million, the Transportation Department said in a statement today.

Justin Nisly, a Transportation Department spokesman, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the filing.

The case is American Trucking Associations v. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 12-1092, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington).

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/trucking-industry-to-challenge-u-s-on-rules-for-driver-time-off.html

The railroad and trucking industries have called a truce, at least for now, in their lobbying battle over increasing the size and weight of trucks allowed on interstate highways.

House lawmakers should “oppose any floor amendments that would modify any of the truck size and weight provisions” in the five-year, $260 billion highway construction bill to be debated this week, Ed Hamberger, Association of American Railroads chief executive, and Bill Graves, chief executive of the American Trucking Associations, said in a statement.

“It’s important that you not have two very large, significant sectors of the transportation community at each others’ throats as the bill goes to the floor,” said James Burnley, a former U.S. transportation secretary and a trucking industry lobbyist. “That undermines support in what is an already very, very difficult situation in passing the bill in either house.”

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) brokered the deal to increase the chances of getting enough support to pass the bill, Burnley said.

The truce doesn’t extend to the Senate, where some lawmakers are expected to offer bigger truck amendments, said Sean McNally, a spokesman for the Arlington County-based trucking group. The Senate is considering a two-year, $109 billion spending plan.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted 33 to 22 on Feb. 2 to delay any expansion in use of trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds for three years, so the Transportation Department can study the potential effect on highway safety, roads and bridges.

The measure, as originally written by House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.), would have allowed states to permit more 97,000-pound trucks on U.S. interstate highways and would have expanded use of double- and triple-trailers in states that allow them.

The language on longer, heavier trucks prompted a lobbying and public-relations blitz before last week’s vote that included a YouTube video, posted by a railroad equipment trade group, that showed triple-trailer trucks weaving on rainy highways. Burnley accused railroad interests at the time of running a “multimillion- dollar propaganda campaign.”

Trucking companies such as Con-way and shippers including Home Depot and International Paper were pushing for the language to improve efficiency as freight volumes are expected to surge. The rail industry opposed the language, citing a study that showed it would reduce railroad traffic by 19 percent.

In addition to the railroads and their suppliers, big-truck opponents included highway safety advocates, truck accident victims, independent truck drivers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and state highway patrols.

Before the deal was announced Thursday, the Railway Supply Institute, which represents makers of railroad equipment and technology such as Wabtec Corp. and Alstom SA, asked its member companies “to help us keep the pressure on your members of Congress by urging your employees to call and ask them to vote ‘no’ on bigger trucks,” according to a report in Railway Age, an industry newsletter.

The Washington-based institute told members their employees could call the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks’s toll-free hotline to be connected to their representative’s office. The coalition, based in Alexandria, is a railroad-industry-funded group that works with law enforcement, local government, engineers, independent truckers and highway safety advocates to oppose increasing truck size and weights.

“We are obviously disappointed that the weight provisions didn’t survive in the committee vote, but there are significant productivity gains in the bill,” McNally said.

Holly Arthur, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based railroad association, declined to comment.

The Highway Trust Fund, which finances U.S. road, bridge and mass-transit projects, may become insolvent as soon as October unless lawmakers lock in additional funding sources, the Congressional Budget Office said on Jan. 31. The Senate and House bills authorize more in spending than the fund’s income from fuel taxes.

Since 2009, U.S. surface-transportation funding has continued through a series of legislative extensions, the latest of which expires March 31.

-Bloomberg News

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rail-and-trucking-industries-call-a-truce/2012/02/10/gIQAysYiAR_story.html