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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Freightliner dealer TAG Truck Center held an open house here for customers earlier this month to demonstrate a 2010 tractor that uses selective catalytic reduction and answer questions about the emission technology Freightliner will use to meet tougher emission standards.

Fleets are becoming more optimistic about a trucking recovery in the next 12 months, but carriers said the current market still is plagued by freight rates that are scraping the bottom.

The trucking industry lost 8,100 jobs in May, the lowest total in eight months and roughly half the number that were laid off in April, the Labor Department reported.

Federal funds to stimulate highway projects are moving in fits and starts through the bureaucratic funding pipeline, delivering new work for some fleets while others get no benefit from the $26.7 billion economic recovery effort.

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar Inc. last week leveled new allegations against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accusing the federal regulator of privately and illegally giving its competitors the green light to deploy a selective catalyst reduction emission control technology that could be implemented only with an “illegal relaxation” of EPA’s 2010 nitrogen oxide emission standard.

Still smarting from record fuel costs last year and fighting to survive a global recession, the trucking industry is wincing over a five-week run-up in diesel prices, capped by a 14.6-cent jump last week.

WASHINGTON — American Trucking Associations has called on Congress and the Department of Transportation to back an 18-point plan to reduce truck-involved crashes, with a particular emphasis on driver behavior.

Business inventories fell 1.1% in April, the eighth consecutive decline, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Oil rose past $72 a barrel in after-hours trading Wednesday for the first time in seven months, Bloomberg reported.

Initial jobless claims fell by 24,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.