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WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee’s panel on surface transportation called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s revised hours-of-service rule “a sham,” while advocacy groups asked a federal court to once again overturn portions of the rule.

On the heels of YRC Worldwide’s settlement with the Teamsters union on a new five-year labor contract with in-creased work-rule flexibility, ABF Freight System said it will offer an ambitious proposal to spend about $825 million to “withdraw from all of the 27 multi-employer pension plans to which we contribute.”

European truck makers would have to cut urban air pollution in the European Union as much as 80% under new draft EU rules that would move Europe closer to U.S. standards, Bloomberg reported Friday.

Safety advocates have again gone to court to try to block the Department of Transportation’s rule on truck driver hours of service, news reports said.

Ryder System said Wednesday it will buy the truck leasing business of Lily Transportation Corp., a Northeast regional transportation services company based in Needham, Mass.

Bill Pugh, executive director and general counsel of the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, resigned the post he has held for the past six years, NMFTA said.

President Bush defended the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, saying that a national strategy toward climate change is more effective than a state-by-state approach, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The Department of Transportation said Tuesday it is asking private industry, research organizations, and state and local governments for commercially available technology to fight congestion and improve the safety within the U.S. transportation system.