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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.

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.

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.

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar Inc. has accused the Environmental Protection Agency of attempting to remove documents from official records and allowing the Engine Manufacturers Association to write the draft of its selective catalytic reduction guidance document for 2010 “in secret collaboration with certain engine makers.”

The European Union last week imposed tariffs on biodiesel imported from the United States to counter low prices it said were caused by subsidies, but a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative denied subsidies were the main reason for the growth of U.S. sales in Europe and that the United States would review the tariffs “closely.”

A leading Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee proposed taxing speculative oil trades to kill two birds with one stone: Boost highway funding and reduce the effect of speculation on fuel prices.

Over-the-highway trucks and buses with 2007 engine technology ran nearly 90% cleaner than required by federal emission standards for diesel particulate matter, the key pollutant targeted that year, a recent study has found.