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The Texas Transportation Commission has voted to lower truck tolls on two Austin-area highways in an attempt to encourage trucks to use them.

U.S. gross domestic product rose at a 2.8% annual rate in the third quarter, a smaller rate than the previous estimate, the Commerce Department said Friday.

No one knows the Canada-U.S. border and the difficulties even the most trusted individuals and companies have had crossing it in the “security trumps trade” post-9/11 world than truckers. It’s not surprising, then, that truckers welcome the announcement from U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the two countries are embarking upon negotiations aimed at improved cooperation and coordination at the border.

Just as the U.S. economy seems to be growing some serious muscle, international events are threatening to intervene in what has become a period of steady business improvement.

Consumer confidence hit its highest level in three years in February, the New York-based Conference Board reported Tuesday.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Transportation to study and establish a maximum number of hours that drivers may be detained at loading docks without being compensated.

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency would eliminate diesel emissions-reduction grants and shrink other agency programs. But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson last week vowed to forge full-speed ahead with the agency’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, including the agency’s proposed truck fuel-efficiency rule.

Lawyers for American Trucking Associations and the Port of Los Angeles completed filing their written legal arguments last week over the port’s attempted ban on independent owner-operators.

President Barack Obama’s transportation reauthorization proposal would increase spending on roads and bridges over the next six years to $336 billion, a 48% increase over the $227 billion in the previous federal reauthorization package.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Transportation Department’s new proposed hours-of-service rule is too complex, rigid, and would reduce the productivity of motor carriers, while making highways no safer, trucking industry and trade association executives and truck drivers told federal regulators last week.