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The idea of removing 10% of truck traffic from the nation’s highways by 2020 to reduce carbon emissions is “almost ludicrous,” Ray Kuntz, former chairman of American Trucking Associations, told a Senate committee last week.

Any trucking company that takes the leadership position in safety and in clean air is to be commended. But doing so through high-tech safety and Environmental Protection Agency ventures makes the outcome risky.

Prices paid to U.S. producers jumped 1.8% in June, led by higher fuel costs, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

Retail sales rose 0.6% in June, led by gains in automobile and fuel purchases, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Gasoline prices fell 10 cents in the past two weeks to $2.56 per gallon, according to latest Lundberg Survey of fuel prices released Sunday.

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar Inc. has accused the Environmental Protection Agency of attempting to remove documents from official records and allowing the Engine Manufacturers Association to write the draft of its selective catalytic reduction guidance document for 2010 “in secret collaboration with certain engine makers.”

The Senate last week kicked off debate on an energy bill that includes a controversial cap-and-trade provision to limit carbon emissions, summoning four top Obama administration officials to testify before the committee that will craft the Senate version of climate change and energy policy legislation.

The European Union last week imposed tariffs on biodiesel imported from the United States to counter low prices it said were caused by subsidies, but a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative denied subsidies were the main reason for the growth of U.S. sales in Europe and that the United States would review the tariffs “closely.”

Diesel prices dipped slightly for the second week in a row but, according to truckers and analysts, have yet to reflect the full effect of falling crude oil prices, record diesel surpluses and one of the worst freight recessions in trucking history.