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Surface trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico jumped 8.9% last year over 2005 levels, the Department of Transportation said Tuesday.

Click here to write a Letter to the Editor. There is a lot more traffic and a lot more going on behind the wheel other than turning it, with cellphones, Global Positioning System and onboard computers.

FMCSA Names Safety Committees • Highway Watch Debuts Online Training • Insurance Co. Not Liable in Conn. Crash

WASHINGTON — Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), author of the rules Congress set for opening the U.S. border to Mexican trucks, told Transportation Secretary Mary Peters she suspected the agency may be stacking the deck in its recently announced pilot program.

A coalition of trucking safety groups issued a report this week giving poor grades to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failing to do enough to reduce large truck-related fatalities.

Safety-watchdog group Public Citizen said Tuesday it sued the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on behalf of a highway safety organization to compel the agency to release information about recent decision to allow Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways.

The average national price of diesel fuel gained another 5.9 cents from last week in rising to $2.685 a gallon, a sixth straight increase, the Department of Energy said Monday.

U.S. business inventories rose 0.2% in January, but sales declined by the most in four months, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

U.S. retail sales rose 0.1% in February, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — After more than a decade in the minority — and the past six years relegated to near-obscurity behind a powerful Republican majority and a Republican White House — Democrats swept into power in November, capturing both houses of Congress.