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Diesel prices have dropped almost 50% since record levels last year, but fleets continue to work on cutting fuel costs, one of their largest expenses.

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.

Transport carriers are under pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the long-term fuel savings a hybrid truck could deliver are out of sync with fiscal reality for companies forced by the recessionary economy to pinch every penny.

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.

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.

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.