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Federal trucking regulators announced two long-awaited final rules last week, one setting up classroom and behind-the-wheel training requirements for new truck and bus drivers; the other to help motor carriers keep tabs on drivers shopping for jobs after they have refused or failed pre-employment drug and alcohol tests.

The clarification of an hours-of-service rule for truckers in a short-term funding bill was signed by President Obama shortly after the Senate cleared the bill Dec. 9 and a shutdown of the federal government was averted.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder turned the bills governing autonomous and platooning vehicles into law Dec. 9. Senate Bills 995-997 had been passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Michigan’s Legislature.

Consolidated Fastfrate, a less-than-truckload company headquartered in Ontario, is offering cross-border service into the United States through partnerships with other carriers, the company announced Dec. 6.

MEXICO CITY — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce told a closed-door gathering of Mexican and American corporate and government leaders that it is aiming to keep Donald Trump from fulfilling his campaign threat to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

President-elect Donald Trump is tapping Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he announced Dec. 8, placing a chief opponent of the Obama administration’s climate agenda in charge of implementing the nation’s environmental laws.

WASHINGTON — Allowing states to establish tolling facilities on existing interstate highways would help finance large-scale infrastructure projects, the former governor of Pennsylvania argued while on a panel here on Dec. 8.

Vermont is Bernie Sanders’ home state, but its governor-elect is hardly in the former Democratic presidential candidate’s tax and spend model. Speaking to the Vermont Petroleum Association on Dec. 7, Republican Phil Scott said he wants to rebuild the state’s infrastructure but without raising taxes. 

WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on a Senate trucking subcommittee said he is hopeful Republican leaders will be forced to remove a provision in a short-term funding bill that would clarify an hours-of-service rule for truckers.