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Boyd Bros. Transportation repurchased 500,000 shares of the company’s common stock. Seperately, the company terminated negotiations to buy Ruel Smith Transportation Services.

Diesel prices could stage a slight comeback in the coming weeks due to cold weather snaps and more stable crude oil prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency is under investigation by the House Commerce Committee over its handling of claims that diesel engine manufacturers cheated on federal emissions tests. A settlement of the dispute led to the largest environmental penalty ever imposed in U.S. history.

Is bigger better? Or is smaller beautiful? Some in the trucking and railroad industries would take issue with both. Trucking sees bigger loads increasing the productivity of drivers, but its rail counterpart fears the loss of freight business.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, vowed to get Congress to support his plan to move the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

What a year it was for lawyers, labor unions and lobbyists. And not a bad year for business, either.

They might as well post a sign at the entrance to the Alexandria, Va., headquarters of American Trucking Associations, saying “Welcome to the New ATA.”

Highway spending dominated the first half of 1998 as Congress worked to complete a massive surface transportation bill. No sooner had President Clinton signed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century into law than trucking safety was thrust into the spotlight by a proposal to place the Office of Motor Carriers in a new home.

A solid gain in Transport Topics’s Trucking Stock Index masked the fact that most trucking stocks faired poorly in 1998.