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Burning more gallons of fuel means federal transportation budget makers will have a $3 billion windfall to work with in fiscal 2001.

After refusing to budge on the issue for months, the federal government has agreed to extend the deadline for comments on its controversial ergonomics standard proposal.

The Teamsters union showed its cards last week, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that it intends to organize the nation’s port owner-operators.

Representatives of Overnite Transportation Co. and the Teamsters will meet in Chicago to discuss changes in pay and benefits implemented by the company on Jan. 1.

Not even the prestige of being the world’s largest package carrier and the promise of delivering a majority of the goods purchased over the Internet have seemed to help United Parcel Service impress Wall Street.

Oregon last week dropped out of Norpass, a transponder-based weigh station bypass system it helped nurture, over terms of an agreement reached with rival service PrePass aimed at making the systems at least partially compatible for truckers.

The American Lung Association has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court decision that blocked the enforcement of new federal smog and soot regulations.

Volvo Trucks North America will lay off more than 400 employees at its Dublin,Va., plant in mid-February, bringing the total layoffs at the facility to 800 and dropping employment at the plant to about 2,400 workers.

The International Registration Plan, by which trucking companies register their vehicles, could go awry in California if the industry, government officials and lawmakers can’t bring the state’s tax and registration policies into line with the other IRP states by next year.

TransForce Inc., one of the most active trucking consolidators in Canada, last week agreed to acquire TST Solutions of Mississauga, Ontario, for $85 million Canadian ($59 million U.S.).