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Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and state Democratic legislative leaders last week were racing to meet a self-imposed deadline to approve a $52.4 billion, 10-year transportation bill to fix California’s crumbling infrastructure with revenue from hefty gasoline and diesel tax increases.

WASHINGTON — A $1 trillion infrastructure funding plan President Donald Trump intends to unveil would seek to connect private investors with officials who manage big-ticket projects, the country’s top transportation officer told port executives April 5.

Two people accused by the Federal Trade Commission of using deceptive tactics to sell registration services to truck owners and operators are fighting back, asking a federal judge to allow a counterclaim against the agency for defamation and tortuous interference.

Americans’ confidence climbed for the fifth time in the last six weeks, resulting in the strongest quarterly sentiment since 2007, Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index figures showed April 6.

On April 4, Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao spoke to a group of business leaders at a town hall-style event with business CEOs and suggested that an infrastructure package could come as soon as May.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving an obese truck driver who claimed in a lawsuit that his employer, Crete Carrier Corp., should not have required him to submit to a sleep study to determine if he had sleep apnea.

WASHINGTON — Transportation authorizers need to consider ways to reform the planning and approval process for highway infrastructure projects, Mike Patterson, executive director of Oklahoma’s Department of Transportation, told a House subcommittee April 5.

WASHINGTON — Raising the federal tax on fuel and indexing it to inflation would be the most ideal approach for restoring long-term funding for big-ticket infrastructure maintenance programs, Werner Enterprises Inc. CEO Derek Leathers told a Senate panel on April 4. 

When the American Society of Civil Engineers published its latest Infrastructure Report Card last month, the results were sobering: a grade of D+ for the U.S. and an estimated price tag of $4.6 trillion to make needed repairs by 2025.