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The battle over which federal agency gets jurisdiction over truck safety took a new twist last week with the announcement of a second set of congressional hearings on the issue.

The railroad industry won’t take action to change the federal size and weight limits on trucks, as long as trucking doesn’t move to increase the allowable maximums, Association of American Railroads President Edward Hamberger said.

FedEx is absolutely, positively in the freight business.

The Oregon Trucking Associations thinks the 1999 session of the state legislature offers its best chance in years to win repeal of Oregon’s weight-distance tax, which at 50 years may be the oldest such tax in the nation.

The ball is now in American Trucking Associations’ court. That’s the word from the 13 state trucking association executives that met in Dallas Jan. 30 to discuss concerns over the pace of ATA’s restructuring.

The head of Freightliner Corp. advocates a “transit tax” and a trade-off with the government to increase productivity of trucks.

The proposed Department of Transportation budget for the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1, calls for more highway spending but allocates most of a $1.5 billion windfall in motor fuel tax revenue to non-road spending.

Two of the best-known names in the chemical hauling business are about to disappear.

Now it’s official, and Congress should take note: Executives of Freightliner Corp. and its corporate parent, Daimler-Benz AG, claim that the Environmental Protection Agency gave its seal of approval to the exact engine testing strategy the agency last year used as the basis for $1 billion in fines and remedial actions against the nation’s manufacturers of diesel truck engines.

The railroads just can’t seem to cope with success.