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The United States and the European Union said they will begin talks for a transatlantic free-trade deal, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a longtime advocate of transportation safety and infrastructure, will not seek reelection in 2014, he announced Thursday.

The Virginia Senate on Wednesday passed a transportation funding bill that would raise the state’s 17.5-cent tax on gasoline and diesel fuel by a nickel, to 22.5 cents a gallon, after last week rejecting Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal to do away with the gasoline tax entirely.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Obama pitched a “Fix-It First” program to address the nation’s most immediate infrastructure needs and called for more use of natural gas as a transportation fuel.

Karen Mills, head of the Small Business Administration, said Monday that she will leave her post, opening another Cabinet slot for President Obama to fill.

Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he plans to introduce a bill in the next month to create an infrastructure investment office within the Treasury Department as well as a fund to make loans to states.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has proposed increasing the state diesel tax by 18 cents to a total of 33 cents a gallon to fix roads and bridges, the Associated Press reported.

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.

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.