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U.S. retail diesel prices dropped 4.6 cents last week to $2.496 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported — the fourth straight decline — but rising crude oil costs will soon lead to a reversal of that trend, a department analyst predicted.

Forward Air Corp.’s second-quarter net income fell to $2.8 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with a profit of $12.1 million, or 42 cents, a year ago.

Navistar Inc. said it has completed 18 months of laboratory and field tests of its “advanced” version of exhaust gas recirculation engine technology that will be used to meet 2010 federal emission requirements.

The idea of removing 10% of truck traffic from the nation’s highways by 2020 to reduce carbon emissions is “almost ludicrous,” Ray Kuntz, former chairman of American Trucking Associations, told a Senate committee last week.

Any trucking company that takes the leadership position in safety and in clean air is to be commended. But doing so through high-tech safety and Environmental Protection Agency ventures makes the outcome risky.

Prices paid to U.S. producers jumped 1.8% in June, led by higher fuel costs, the Labor Department said Tuesday.

Retail sales rose 0.6% in June, led by gains in automobile and fuel purchases, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Gasoline prices fell 10 cents in the past two weeks to $2.56 per gallon, according to latest Lundberg Survey of fuel prices released Sunday.

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar Inc. has accused the Environmental Protection Agency of attempting to remove documents from official records and allowing the Engine Manufacturers Association to write the draft of its selective catalytic reduction guidance document for 2010 “in secret collaboration with certain engine makers.”