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Diesel engine maker Cummins Inc.’s emissions subsidiary will lay off about 100 workers at a Wisconsin plant, effective immediately, because of the slumping North American truck market, the company said.

The California Air Resources Board has adopted two new rules requiring carriers to add expensive emission-control devices to their trucks and to use fuel-saving equipment endorsed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay program.

The world of trucking was turned upside down and shaken like a snow globe during 2008.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued its final rule requiring heavy-truck manufacturers to install onboard diagnostic systems starting in 2010 to alert drivers when engine emission systems are malfunctioning or deteriorating.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen the Nobel-prize-winning head of a California research institute and a former New Jersey environmental official to fill his cabinet positions heading the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

A Navistar Inc. spokesman said that a “coalition is building” around the company’s call to the incoming Obama administration to ease 2010 emissions mandates, but the Environmental Protection Agency said its tightened standards would go into effect without delays.

Volvo AB and Daimler AG are producing global heavy-duty engine platforms for use in North America, Europe and Asia, and other manufacturers plan to introduce their own versions, pushed by converging emission regulations, the need to reduce research and development costs and to take advantage of economies of scale, according to industry analysts and executives.

Navistar International Corp. will use federal emission credits to enable its new Class 8 engine to meet 2010 federal emission standards, although the engine could be set up to comply with the regulation without the credits, a Navistar executive said.