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Here’s a double-barreled dose of worrisome news: Trucking wasted some $27 billion in fuel and lost productivity during 2011 due to congestion in the nation’s largest urban areas; fuel prices spiked in the most recent survey by the Department of Energy, 9.5 cents a gallon for diesel and 18.1 cents for gasoline.

Trucking fleets wasted some $27 billion on fuel and wages as their vehicles sat in traffic jams around the country during 2011, according to a new report from Texas A&M University’s Transportation Institute.

American Trucking Associations called on federal officials to establish a process to remove crash statistics from motor carriers’ records in cases where it has been evident that the carrier was not to blame.

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has asked the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to delay implementing scheduled changes to the hours-of-service rules for truck drivers until three months after a pending legal challenge is resolved.

An index of the U.S. economy’s service sector decreased in January from a 10-month high in December, the Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday.

A House subcommittee on highways has targeted some of the top issues for the trucking industry in its oversight plan for the next two years, including the hours-of-service rule for truck drivers and the Compliance, Safety, Accountability ratings program.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a cellulosic biofuel mandate that it said complies with a court ruling that overturned its previous methodology for the mandate.

National Transportation Safety Board chief Deborah Hersman is a leading candidate to succeed Ray LaHood as transportation secretary, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is stepping down, following last week’s announcement that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is leaving the Obama administration.