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After years of study and months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the Department of Transportation unveiled a proposal for reforming hours-of-service rules for truck and bus drivers.

The new millennium picked up where the old one left off, with diesel prices heading skyward. Fuel costs reached new heights in 2000, and the impact was felt throughout the economy, especially by those who operate or build big trucks.

It was a year of decision for independent conferences and professional councils affiliated with American Trucking Associations.

Diesel, the lifeblood of the trucking industry, was under the microscope of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2000, with the most sweeping changes occurring late in the year when the agency issued its fuel rules for 2006.

Workplace safety regulations that would cover more than 100 million people at 6 million workplaces will become the law of the land in 2001 unless the new president or the courts see it differently.

The year 2000 bug got a lot of attention in 1999, but by Jan. 1, 2000, using the Internet to make money — or more precisely, lose money — was all the rage.

The trucking industry knocked off the hated weight-distance tax in Idaho but lost out to voter sentiment in Oregon; fallout from commercial driver licensing bribery spilled across state lines; and New Jersey threw a roadblock across shortcuts taken by interstate truckers.

While trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico continued to expand under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Clinton administration for the fifth year refused to admit Nafta truckers from Mexico, drawing a rebuke, and possible penalties, from arbitrators. In Canada, as in the U.S., skyrocketing fuel prices drove many truckers to protest lines or to the brink.

Shipments of truck trailers continued to mirror the decline in the truck sales market as the yearlong slump intensified during October.

Although the new millennium arrived without a hitch, it was an unsettling year for freight haulers as many of the trends that plagued trucking in 1999 — from rising fuel costs to a persistent shortage of drivers — continued to dog carriers in 2000.