Los Angeles Times News BriefingMayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a law Thursday that will phase out the use of exhaust-spewing diesel trucks carrying cargo from the Port of Los Angeles, part of a larger $1.6-billion clean-air initiative that will affect more than 17,000 older diesel trucks.

“This is the most aggressive effort to clean up the air at a port anywhere in the world,” Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference.

“Today, Angelenos can rest assured their children will breath easier and so will their grandchildren,” he said.

The law requires independent truck drivers serving the port to become employees of trucking companies and bans independent contractors. (more…)

By KEVIN JONES
The Trucker Staff6/25/2008

WASHINGTON - Called to Washington to testify about the impact of market speculation on the price of fuel, a trucking industry leader didn’t give congressmen a lot of global finance ‘why’, but did give plenty of ‘what-for’ when it comes to struggling truckers.

Maverick USA Chairman and CEO Steve Williams told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee Monday that his company didn’t make a profit in 2007 - the first red ink in its 27 years. And the culprit is the soaring cost of diesel.

Maverick’s fuel bill increased by $12 million from 2006 to 2007, and between the sagging economy and tough freight pricing, the company had to absorb the cost increases. If the current diesel price remains constant for the rest of 2008, the fuel bill for his 1,500 vehicle flatbed fleet will increase from $67 million last year to $115 million, up 72 percent, he reported. (more…)

05:57 PM PDT on Wednesday, June 25, 2008By CHRIS DANIELS / KING 5 News

KENT, Wash. - A handful of trucking companies believe someone is behind a major fuel heist in South King County using stolen fuel cards.

The spree has racked up nearly $100,000 in charges.

Jolyn Hamilton knew there was trouble back in April. Surveillance video shows a strange red jeep making the rounds of her Puyallup trucking company on consecutive days, followed by a break-in.

Her gas card was among the valuables stolen and used almost immediately on a fueling spree.

“We got a fax showing the card has been used and had been used extensively,” said Hamilton.

Her gas account was guzzled again just a few days ago and she’s now lost more than $5,000 on illegal purchases. (more…)

The driver, at heart a diesel fan, says the quiet, nonpolluting vehicle ‘performs as well as any other truck its size in the port.’

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 26, 2008

Michael Fluegal is a self-described “diesel big-rig driver at heart,” but he never realized how irritating the noisy, smoke-belching monsters were until he climbed into the cab of the world’s most powerful electric heavy-duty truck and turned on the ignition.

“The only thing you hear is a hum and rolling tires — and there’s zero emissions,” said Fluegal, the designated driver of the 30-ton prototype vehicle that Port of Los Angeles authorities view as a forerunner of a fleet of electric trucks to serve terminals and rail yards.

Stepping on the accelerator and making a hard left turn into harbor traffic on a recent weekday, the husky 6-foot-4 port maintenance worker said, “I don’t come home from work smelling like diesel gasoline after breathing the fumes all day.”

Added Fluegal: “Tell me that ain’t nice.”

In January, Fluegal was assigned the task of putting the big white truck through its paces. So far, he has chalked up 360 miles on the odometer “at all speeds and under all conditions including climbing up and over bridges with a fully loaded 40-foot trailer.” (more…)

By Grant Smith and Christian SchmollingerJune 26 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell for a second day after a report yesterday showed U.S. fuel demand dropped to the lowest since January 2007 as record prices limited purchases.

The upward price trend of oil could ease in the years ahead as U.S. gasoline use may have peaked in 2007, Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told a congressional panel yesterday. Consumption for the week to June 20 slipped 5 percent from its peak of 21.3 million barrels a day on Jan. 4, data from the Energy Department shows.

“Until now declines in demand have been modest, but yesterday’s data showed high prices hitting home,” said Robert Laughlin, senior broker at MF Global Ltd. in London. “Refiners aren’t holding excess supplies, perhaps because their data indicates sales dropping further.”

Crude oil for August delivery fell as much as 87 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $133.68 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $134.10 a barrel at 8:48 a.m. London time. (more…)

BY SCOTT ANDRON - THE MIAMI HERALD
sandron@MiamiHerald.comIf you think that filling up your car is expensive, just be glad you don’t have a 240-gallon tank and a vehicle that gets five miles to the gallon.

With diesel prices at record highs, Miami-based Ryder System is offering a new high-tech tool to help its customers save fuel.

The product, called RydeSmart, is one of several on the market that enables customers to instantly track the fuel consumption, idle time, speed and other vital statistics of every truck in their fleets.

Is Bill the Driver going too fast? Managers back at the office will know immediately, and can contact him and point it out.

Is he leaving the truck to idle too long while it’s stationary? The device can automatically turn the ignition off after a preset number of minutes.

It may even have safety benefits: The device’s software can be programmed to alert managers to patterns of repeated, sudden changes in speed — a sign that the driver may be tailgating.

RydeSmart is a part of the latest generation of GPS devices, which have been used in trucking for years, said Steve Sturgess, executive editor of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine and an observer of the industry for more than three decades. (more…)

The Press Association

6/9/08

Hard-pressed drivers were offered a glimmer of good news as diesel prices dropped for the first time in nearly nine months.

According to the AA, the average pump price of the fuel fell marginally over the weekend from 130.09p to 130.07p a litre.

It is the first drop since the end of the motoring season last September, the motoring organisation said, and comes in the wake of a 10% drop in wholesale diesel prices over the past two weeks.

Prices per metric tonne fell from 1,346 US dollars a tonne on May 23 to 1,204 dollars on June 4, with the resumption of diesel production at three major European refineries cited for the fall. (more…)

Milwaukee Biz BlogPosted on June 09, 2008 4:39 AM
By F. James Sensenbrenner

Last month, a honking motorcade of trucks drove around the U.S. Capitol flashing signs that declared, “When Trucks Stop, America Stops.” They were driving home the point that commercial traffic is vital to the American economy, and no industry is more affected by rising energy costs.

As costs rise for the trucking industry, our costs rise. The additional price of the truckers’ fuel raises the price of our food, health care, manufacturing, retail, waste removal and other goods and services.

The answer is not to burden these businesses with additional taxes for the carbon dioxide they release. Technological advances can mitigate the fuel crisis just as effectively as tax increases. Congress should encourage the development and introduction of technologies that will reduce fuel costs and consumption.
In this case, the technologies we need already exist. We just need research to adapt them to the trucking industry. Everyone has seen hybrid cars, which combine gas and electric motors for a powerful and efficient engine. Hybrid technology can be even more effective in trucks, because trucks consume so much more fuel. (more…)

The Price of Diesel Is Forcing Truckers Out of BusinessJune 9, 2008- Center for American Progress

Newspapers across the country are leading with coverage of new, record-breaking gas prices, which hit the $4 mark for the first time this weekend. Even more worrisome is the price of diesel, which in addition to squeezing the pockets of truck drivers across the country, is beginning to drive up the cost of all consumer goods transported by trucks, which in the United States is 70 percent. What’s more, 80 percent of communities receive all of their freight by truck, which means that these primarily rural areas, which are already hit the hardest by rising gas prices, will also be squeezed the most as prices of other consumer goods rise with the cost of diesel.

With 8.5 million Americans employed in the trucking industry, and an increasing number of truckers being forced out of business every quarter, it’s time that we find effective solutions to combat rising gas and diesel prices in the short term-such as the Center for American Progress’ proposed “reliefbate”-and make the system more efficient and sustainable in the long term. (more…)

Article Launched: 06/07/2008 07:54:07 PM PDTLong Beach Press Telegram

With both ports ready to replace dirty diesels, it’s the wrong time to sue.

Truckers agree that cleaning up their high-polluting diesel engines is a priority. They just need to make it a higher one.

But that’s not what’s happening at either the Port of L.A. or the Port of Long Beach, which are targets of lawsuits planned by the American Trucking Association. The association doesn’t like the ports’ Clean Trucks program.

So the truckers want a Dirty Trucks program? Oh no, they say, they support a cleanup, but they’re suing anyway. In so doing, they are turning deregulation into a grimy word.

The trucking association is bothered especially by a Teamsters-backed plan at the Port of L.A. that would require independent truck operators to take salaried jobs with employers (and thus make it easier for the union to organize them). Since 90 percent of the drivers at both ports are independent operators, that plan is unwieldy and invites legal challenges.

For those reasons, the Port of Long Beach came up with its own version of Clean Trucks, strongly supported by Mayor Bob Foster, which would allow both independent operators as well as employee operators to participate. You’d think the trucking association would have been happy with that. (more…)