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A Senate committee last week approved a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration without a provision that would make it easier for some employees at FedEx Corp. to unionize.

Second-quarter net income at UPS Inc. fell 49%, compared with a year earlier, but all three main divisions remained profitable despite the ongoing recession and a 16.7% decline in global revenue.

Diesel prices have dropped almost 50% since record levels last year, but fleets continue to work on cutting fuel costs, one of their largest expenses.

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats continued to spar over how best to address the nation’s road transportation needs, as the Senate and House moved on opposing paths.

U.S. retail diesel prices dropped 4.6 cents last week to $2.496 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported — the fourth straight decline — but rising crude oil costs will soon lead to a reversal of that trend, a department analyst predicted.

House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) said he was “deeply troubled” over a claim by truck safety inspectors that proposed legislation requiring the purging of flammable materials from tanker wetlines would be “difficult, if not impossible,” to enforce.

Concern about the possibility of legislative threats to the use of owner-operators has led American Trucking Associations to join a Washington, D.C., lobbying group.

Ocean shipper Horizon Lines lost $31.1 million, or $1.02 a share, in the second quarter, compared with a profit of $5.8 million, or 19 cents, a year earlier.

U.S. consumer confidence rose this month for the first time in five months, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan monthly consumer sentiment index released Friday.

Grocery store chain Safeway Inc. said its second-quarter profit inched up 1.8% to $238.6 million, or 57 cents a share, from $234.3 million, or 53 cents, last year.