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U.S. cars and light trucks will be required to carry labels comparing estimated five-year fuel costs with those of the average new vehicle, the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of some of its authority but would not block a proposal to regulate heavy- and medium-duty truck greenhouse gas emissions.

Automakers may forego as much as $4 billion a year in light truck sales to prevent states led by California from setting their own mileage standards, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Just as the U.S. economy seems to be growing some serious muscle, international events are threatening to intervene in what has become a period of steady business improvement.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) has introduced a bill that would require the Department of Transportation to study and establish a maximum number of hours that drivers may be detained at loading docks without being compensated.

President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency would eliminate diesel emissions-reduction grants and shrink other agency programs. But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson last week vowed to forge full-speed ahead with the agency’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, including the agency’s proposed truck fuel-efficiency rule.

The Obama administration’s proposed budget would cut funding for clean-diesel technology grants, Bloomberg reported.

WASHINGTON — The first-ever proposed federal commercial truck fuel-efficiency and carbon emissions standard could cause an industry pre-buy before it becomes effective in 2014, or drive motor carriers to delay retirement of their fleets, a transportation consultant said.

President Obama signed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act into law Jan. 4.