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American Trucking Associations asked Congress to implement a comprehensive plan to address the soaring price of diesel fuel and ensures an affordable fuel supply for the nation’s 3.5 million truck drivers.

California clean-air regulators propose to force all older highway trucks running within state boundaries to be retrofitted first with diesel particulate filters, costing $8,000 to $20,000 and more, and then with equipment that reduces output of nitrogen oxides, in a complicated, staggered schedule in effect from 2010 through 2022.

High fuel prices are dampening demand for diesel and gasoline, and more Americans will stay home this Fourth of July holiday than last year, a truck stop trade group said Thursday.

An executive with Pilot Travel Centers said the number of diesel fuel thefts has soared this year.

Large-scale manufacturing of 550-horsepower, 13-liter diesel truck engines that can run for a million miles is such a complicated endeavor that, since 1990, EPA has given engine makers some short-term wiggle room on hitting emissions targets through its averaging, banking and trading program.

The U.S. Department of Energy and the government of Sweden extended a cooperative agreement with the Volvo Group on development of alternative drivelines, Volvo said Monday.

The fuel price express took a holiday last week, as the average price of diesel dipped 4.4 cents a gallon to $4.648, and the price of gasoline declined for the first time in three months, according to the Department of Energy.

The two major engine makers that will employ exhaust gas recirculation technology to meet the tightened federal emissions rules that go into effect in 2010 will use credits they have earned from the Environmental Protection Agency to hit the new mark.

With sightings of $5 diesel looming in some states, the fuel surcharge is a necessary ingredient to help offset the weekly fuel cost increases.