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Plans by the Chinese government to close factories in and around Beijing and Shanghai this summer to reduce air pollution for the 2008 Summer Olympics could cause early or late peak seasonal surges in exports to the United States, shipping industry executives and transportation experts said.

Stung by the sharp rise in diesel prices, fleet executives are pushing to find new ways to stretch their fuel dollars and recover as much of their costs as possible.

As I understand the new driver-training rules, they indicate that a company cannot hire drivers if that company has a school for training those drivers. This is in conflict with every training institution in the country — if not the world.

Clean Diesel Technologies said Tuesday it has licensed its wire mesh filter technology to Headway Machinery Co. Ltd., the largest commercial diesel engine exhaust company in China.

Diesel engine maker Cummins Inc. said Tuesday it opened its first fuel systems manufacturing site outside of North America, the Cummins Fuel Systems Wuhan plant, in China.

As we move closer to the next federal mandate on emissions — which comes into force for 2010-model heavy-duty trucks — proponents of the two competing technologies are beginning to publicly argue over the superiority of their choices.

Auxiliary power units, initially pushed by federal and state governments to reduce air pollution despite concerns by fleet owners and owner-operators over their initial cost, are attracting more buyers who purchase them for the fuel savings, now that average diesel prices are about $4 a gallon.