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Congress, after an abrupt about-face by the Bush administration, moved quickly last week to transfer more than $8 billion into the Highway Trust Fund to keep the road-building finance program solvent.

Astronomic fuel prices are only part of the economic drag on trucking these days. Add the growing length of time on accounts receivables, more customer bankruptcies and the tightening of credit by suppliers and lenders, and it’s easy to see how carriers’ cash flow has ebbed.

The price of goods imported to the United States fell 3.7% in August, led by declining oil prices, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Crude oil prices continued to slide early Wednesday, even as Hurricane Ike intensified as it moved into the Gulf of Mexico and a top OPEC official said the cartel would trim an oversupplied market, Bloomberg reported.

If the Chinese are going to make all the goods, the Arabs supply all the oil and the Mexicans do all the transportation, what are we going to do? This sounds very much like the fall of the Roman Empire in past history.

Trucking-related highway fatalities fell again last year, to their lowest level in 15 years, according to data from the Department of Transportation.

A federal judge tentatively denied American Trucking Associations’ request for an injunction that would delay the start of concessionaire programs for drayage drivers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.