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New legislation aimed at giving ports more authority to set environmental regulations is expanding the battle over the Port of Los Angeles’ controversial employees-only clean trucks plan from the courts to Congress.

The Obama administration must produce a plan to solve the ongoing border trucking dispute with Mexico by October, under a provision inserted in the Transportation Department’s 2011 budget.

The recession appears to be waning, but trucking still is feeling the downturn’s effects and is keeping a watchful eye on expenses, including insurance.

While Wall Street continues to express its doubts about the strength of the U.S. economic recovery that is under way, most trucking companies say that business is continuing to improve.

The proposal for revamping the federal government’s hours-of-service rule for truck drivers that a coalition of interest groups released recently illustrates just how little these political theorists understand about highway safety and the business of moving America’s freight.

The U.S. Department of Transportation in June awarded grants totaling $6.25 million to five states to “ease truck parking shortages on U.S. interstates.”

Transport Topics Online will be closed on Monday, July 5, for the Independence Day holiday. Please check back on Tuesday, July 6, for the latest trucking and freight transportation news.

This week’s issue of Transport Topics includes some interesting news about the federal government’s new safety regime for trucking, Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, including that the program is going to be renamed.

Detroit Diesel Corp. said it will spend $194 million to renovate its 72-year-old Redford, Mich., plant, the latest example of truck makers pouring investments into diesel engine facilities to manufacture the complicated new power plants and vertically integrate production.