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The Distribution and LTL Carriers Association has asked the Research and Special Programs Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to hold hearings before proposing hazardous materials transportation regulations.

Truck manufacturers Peterbilt Motor Co. and Kenworth Truck Co. last week said they would lay off a total of 700 to 800 workers due to a sharp drop in fall sales orders.

The government's refusal to extend the deadline for requiring cleaner-running diesel truck engines hit the truck manufacturing industry hard last week, as two major fleets said they would cut new truck purchases sharply and a large engine maker warned it would lay off production workers.

WASHINGTON — The state of California sets its own environmental laws and will not give heavy-duty diesel engine makers any delay beyond Oct. 1 to make cleaner diesel engines even if the federal government does, a California Air Resources Board official said here last week.

The Environmental Protection Agency lowered its non-compliance penalties for engines that emit more than 2.5 grams of nitrogen oxides because of lobbying pressure and revisions in what the life cycle costs of the engine could be, said EPA and a House representative.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican whose district includes factories owned by diesel manufacturer Caterpillar, last week threw his support into the effort to block or delay the Oct. 1 deadline for selling cleaner-running diesel engines.

American Trucking Associations has asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to modify consent decrees the court approved in 1999 which bound the diesel-engine industry to produce cleaner-burning truck engines by Oct. 1.

The next multiyear highway bill likely will continue the tradition of allowing states to determine how best to spend federal highway dollars, but lawmakers will have to deal, for the first time, with how much money should be spent on anti-terrorism measures.

American Trucking Associations said proposed Department of Transportation regulations to enhance the security of hazardous material shipments would be ineffective to prevent a terrorist from turning a cargo vehicle into a weapon of mass destruction.

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency indicated it might soften its position on diesel engine emissions penalties, according to the organizer of a congressional delegation that met with EPA officials last week.