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Consumer confidence fell in June to a seven-month low, the New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday.

Rep. John Mica (R) Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has set July 7 as his target date for unveiling his six-year reauthorization bill.

Imagine a time when a statewide trucking organization, in order to help its state government pay for necessary improvements to roads and bridges, supports a proposal that the state float a bond issue to cover the work and volunteers to have its members pay most of the bills for the work through a jump in the diesel fuel tax.

Arkansas truckers, whose leadership convinced state legislators to approve a 5-cent-a-gallon diesel tax increase for highway repairs, are seeking a new funding source after a plan to put the tax proposal before the voters ran into stiff opposition.

The average price of a gallon of retail diesel dipped for the sixth time in the past seven weeks, even before 28 nations agreed June 23 to release 60 million barrels of crude oil from their strategic reserves in a bid to drive fuel prices lower around the world.

Maine’s legislature has approved a two-year, $637 million transportation funding bill that would end annual fuel tax increases tied to inflation beginning next year.

The ability of state and local governments to raise cash by  leasing or selling transportation assets to private investors would be slowed down, if not killed altogether, under a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.).

WASHINGTON — Replacing the current hours-of-service rule with one that cuts driving hours would put more inexperienced truck drivers on the road and pass increased transportation costs onto consumers, four executives who run trucks told a House subcommittee.

Finance and information technology trucking executives are set to meet this week in Phoenix, as American Trucking Associations embarks on a campaign to reinvigorate some of its councils that had to retrench during the recession.