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WASHINGTON — The head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told trucking industry leaders Tuesday the agency was within its rights to ban texting by commercial drivers through a reinterpretation of existing rules, but that more explicit bans were on the way.

A year into the Obama administration, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves said the trucking industry’s challenges are primarily regulatory, rather than legislative, because of the gridlock that has enveloped Congress since last year.

The Environmental Protection Agency has not yet said how it intends to require heavy trucks to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but a report on the agency’s Web site projects that an advanced notice of rulemaking could be posted as early as June.

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. said Tuesday it will expand its network of liquefied natural gas stations in southern California in large cities and along major truck routes, with a goal to expand into the Southwest.

The company uDrove LLC has released a software program that it said will handle all of the trucking industry’s compliance management needs with a smart phone.

The California Air Resources Board has launched a $20 million funding assistance program to stimulate the purchase of hybrid trucks and buses.

The letter from [an official] of Road Safe America that appeared in the Feb. 1 edition contained a number of misstatements and misunderstandings.

John Ruan, who — beginning with one used dump truck — launched a trucking, financial, real estate and philanthropic empire during the Great Depression, died Feb. 13. He was 96.

Trade groups representing products ranging from farm to factory are pressuring the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate a Mexican cross-border trucking program to end Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs that cost U.S. businesses millions of dollars in lost revenue.