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WASHINGTON — After more than a decade in the minority — and the past six years relegated to near-obscurity behind a powerful Republican majority and a Republican White House — Democrats swept into power in November, capturing both houses of Congress.

A coalition of trucking safety groups issued a report this week giving poor grades to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failing to do enough to reduce large truck-related fatalities.

Safety-watchdog group Public Citizen said Tuesday it sued the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on behalf of a highway safety organization to compel the agency to release information about recent decision to allow Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways.

Canada Cartage Diversified Income Fund said Monday that its revenue rose 18.2% to C$275.3 million in its first year of operation as a public company, but lost C$300,000 or 1 cent per unit in the fourth quarter.

Interpool Inc., a maker of shipping containers and chassis for intermodal container transportation, reported its 2006 net income rose, in part due to the sale of its container operating lease fleet.

Average U.S. retail gasoline prices jumped 20 cents in the past two weeks to $2.55 a gallon, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of filling stations released Sunday.

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Cascade Sierra Solutions, a nonprofit group that promotes the sale of products to help truck drivers save fuel and reduce emissions, said it has opened the first of what could be as many as eight “green truck technology” showrooms along the Interstate 5 corridor in Oregon, Washington and California.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed for the first time sharp cuts in exhaust emissions from railroad locomotive and marine engines in a plan a spokesman said would “follow exactly the same pattern” as environmental regulations for truck engines.

Canada-based transportation firm Trimac Income Fund earned C$3.1 million or 8 cents per unit in the fourth quarter, down from C$5.7 million or 13 cents a year earlier.