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The largest U.S. pipeline operator, Colonial Pipeline, said it plans to ban diesel fuel with lubricity additives from its system, which would require the oil industry to spend millions of dollars to equip their terminals to add the chemicals. Others are likely to follow.

NEW ORLEANS — Officials at pipeline companies and fuel retailers said they would have to change fuel-distribution patterns, and be careful when loading or storing ultra-low-sulfur fuel, to avoid its being contaminated by fuel with higher sulfur content to an extent that the ULSD would fail to meet government standards.

NEW ORLEANS — Ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel is going to have to leave refineries at well below new federal sulfur-content levels for 2006 because contamination as it moves through pipelines is inevitable, according to refiners, pipeline operators and environmental officials.

A spokeswoman for the California Air Resources Board said that it had received more than 3,000 comments on whether or not it should seek a waiver from federal Clean Air Act rules so that a Southern California air-quality agency could require public fleets to buy cleaner-running engines.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects to release by year’s end a proposed rule that would start the formal process to shorten the required stopping distances for heavy-duty trucks, an agency spokeswoman said.

A group of trucking industry representatives could be ready by early next year to ask Congress to provide financial incentives encouraging the use of engines that meet 2007 federal emission standards, industry officials said.

The California Air Resources Board may seek a waiver from federal Clean Air Act rules in order to allow a Southern California air-quality agency to require public fleets to buy cleaner-running engines, industry officials said.

Operating trucks at weights equal to or greater than existing federal limits resulted in improved fuel efficiency and lower emissions, the American Transportation Research Institute said a study it conducted with engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. concluded.

Canadian customs workers stopped picketing at the U.S.-Canadian border last week, where the action, part of a broader public employee strike, had caused traffic delays.

Congress approved a $136 billion corporate tax bill last week that would change the payment structure of the excise tax on tires and eliminate quarterly payments of the heavy-vehicle use tax.