Trucking group pushes fuel-saving plan
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Struggling with record diesel prices, the trucking industry's main trade group introduced a plan Thursday to reduce fuel consumption and emissions over the next decade mainly by having its members slow down.
The American Trucking Associations, whose members include FedEx, UPS and Con-way, says adherence to a handful of new proposals will reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and carbon-dioxide emissions -- the main culprit in climate change -- by 900 million tons for all vehicles over the next 10 years.
The recommendations are:
Limit the speed new trucks can travel to no more than 68 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles.
Reduce engine idling.
Increase fuel efficiency through participation in an Environmental Protection Agency partnership program.
Ease congestion by improving the nation's highways, through a fuels-tax increase if necessary.
Use more productive truck combinations.
Support national fuel-economy standards for trucks.
Congress repealed the national speed-limit law in 1995, and 32 states now have limits of 70 mph or higher on some parts of their highways, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But the ATA has yet to find a federal lawmaker to champion its cause of reducing the national limit.
