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Volvo Trucks North America said Monday it is now offering Bendix heavy-duty air disc brakes on Volvo VN and VT model trucks.

American Trucking Associations last week asked a federal court to block emission-reduction plans by the California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that include concessionaire requirements the group said “unlawfully re-regulated the federally de-regulated trucking industry.”

Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire said Thursday that it will raise prices by up to 10% on all of its truck, bus, pickup and passenger tires because of higher raw materials costs and persistently high fuel prices.

The Environmental Protection Agency postponed until early August its decision on whether to grant a request from Texas to cut the national renewable fuels mandate in half, citing the huge number of comments EPA has received on the issue, which has pitted livestock growers against grain producers.

Most public less-than-truckload companies’ second-quarter profits fell as fleets were pounded by record diesel prices and flagging economic demand, but some executives said they thought the overall pricing environment had improved, or at least stabilized.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a nearly 600-page request for public comment on whether it should use existing law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a decision one trucking official said was a way to further delay any new regulations until after President Bush leaves office.

The U.S. retail diesel average rose 3.7 cents last week to another record, $4.764 a gallon, the Department of Energy reported, while the price of crude oil posted its largest single-day drop in 17 years on July 15.

Despite fuel prices zooming toward the outer edge of our galaxy, ours is a nation of crowded highways and busy people who don’t like trucks getting in their way.