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A coalition of interest groups that has repeatedly succeeded in challenging the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s hours-of-service rule last week pushed for dramatically cutting the current daily and weekly work-time limits.

Retail diesel prices reversed course last week, as the national average rose 3.3 cents a gallon to $2.961 after falling 19.9 cents in the five previous weeks, the Department of Energy reported.

The federal government’s Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 is supported by the trucking industry but needs some changes, a trucking executive testifying for American Trucking Associations told a congressional panel Wednesday.

The past 10 months have seen a precipitous decline in the quality of driver applicants. There are recruiters everywhere saying, “Good applicants are getting scarce.”

A Senate bill that supporters said would make it easier for federal regulators to catch employers who misclassify their employees as independent contractors also would help ensure a “level playing field in the marketplace,” a top official with the Department of Labor told a Senate panel.

President Obama touted the 10,000th road project funded by last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at an event Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.

A bill in the New York State Legislature would create a system of loans and tax incentives for businesses willing to build safe parking facilities for truck drivers.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to propose fuel efficiency standards starting with model year 2016 commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles, and said it will prepare and environmental impact statements as part of the procedure.

About the two May 17 “rate setting” letters: It’s important for trucking companies to understand that we are the ones who set the rates.