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OAKLAND, Calif. — Officials with the Port of Oakland’s main terminals said on Monday that operations have returned to normal after at least a hundred truckers blocked entrances over the past week in protest of a California law that affects contract workers, such as independent owner-operators. Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), also known as the “gig economy” law, passed in 2019 and makes it harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees, who are entitled to minimum wage and benefits such as workers compensation, overtime and sick pay. A federal appeals court ruled last year that the law applies to some 70,000 California truck drivers who can be classified as employees of companies that hire them instead of independent contractors. There’s been some confusion on when the state might begin enforcing the law against truckers. Truckers are now asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to meet and discuss the issue. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who support AB5, called it a “massive victory” for exploited truckers. But the California Trucking Association (CTA), which sued over the law, has argued that AB5 could make it harder for independent drivers who own their own trucks and operate on their own hours to make a living by forcing them to be classified as employees. The legal battle stalled enforcement of the law but last month the U.S. Supreme Court decided it wouldn’t review the decision, clearing the way for enforcement on the trucking industry. “Gasoline has been poured on the fire that is our ongoing supply chain crisis,” the CTA said in a statement. “In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators who have seven days to cease long-standing independent businesses, the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation.” Trucking company owner Gordy Reimer told Reuters recently that he normally has 50 to 75 independent drivers working at Los Angeles’ ports. All of them declined loads earlier this month to participate in the protests on port properties and nearby roadways, said Reimer, who counted his immediate losses at around $50,000. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), which filed an amicus brief in support of the CTA’s petition, said it was disappointed in the high court’s decision. “With AB5 now set to go into effect, thousands of owner-operators driving in California face an uncertain future,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said. “California has provided no guidance to owner-operators about how they can work as independent contractors under this new scheme, and truckers will be at the mercy of the courts to interpret how the law will be applied. “For truckers that have invested their blood, sweat and treasure to create their own businesses, it is dismaying that lawmakers and the courts are forging ahead with this radical policy that dismisses a beneficial business model that has been in place for decades. At the same time, we know this will not be the last word on the legality of AB5 and expect to participate in future challenges to the law.” Meanwhile, Port of Oakland officials said that last week’s protests “prevented the timely flow of international commerce including medical supplies, agricultural products, auto and technology parts, livestock, and manufacturing parts.” “The economic impact of the Port of Oakland’s maritime operations in California is estimated at $56.6 billion, including $281 million in state and local taxes,” a statement from port officials read. “Direct employment from the Port’s maritime operations is estimated at 11,000 jobs–with an additional 10,000 induced jobs and nearly 6,000 indirect jobs.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday approved legislation designed to expand truck parking infrastructure across the nation. Dubbed the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, the legislation now advances to the House floor for further debate. The legislation was introduced in March 2021 by U.S. Reps. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and Angie Craig, D-Minn. “This is long overdue,” committee chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said. “It’s one solution to try to make the lives of drivers safer and less stressful and perhaps allow for more [driver] retention. This will really help improve the efficiency of trucking.” DeFazio added that he hopes the bill is well received in the Senate. “It may be something that goes into the year-end omnibus (spending bill,” DeFazio said. “I hope we can pass it out of the House unanimously when we come back after the August break.” American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Chris Spear praised congressional leaders for advancing the legislation. “The lack of safe and accessible truck parking is an issue that causes serious concern for our industry,” Spear said. “Without it, drivers waste hours looking for secure places to park for an hour or for the night, hurting their ability to rest and adding undo stress to their days. Moving this legislation forward is a tremendous step toward addressing what has been significant challenge to our industry’s ability to safely and efficiently move the nation’s goods.” The legislation would authorize the creation of a competitive grant program for states to spend $755 million over a four-year period on new truck parking projects including capacity expansion and enhancements like lighting, restrooms and other security features. Access to truck parking is routinely highlighted in the American Transportation Research Institute’s annual list of top issues facing trucking, and ATRI research has found that on average drivers spend nearly an hour — 56 minutes — per day looking for parking, time that reduces their wages, adds undo delays to the supply chain and raises stress on an already taxed workforce. “The availability of safe and secure truck parking is not just a challenge current drivers, it is a barrier our industry must overcome in attracting new drivers – particularly women. Solving it won’t just help today’s industry, it will go a long way toward helping trucking recruit and attract a more diverse workforce,” Spear said. “This kind of bipartisan solution shows that Congress can still step up and address real challenges faced by American workers and I want to thank bill sponsors, Congressmen Bost and Craig, as well as Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves, for moving this important bill forward and urge the full House and Senate to quickly to make it law.” The ATA’s newly formed Women in Motion advisory group and ATA’s Law Enforcement Advisory Board along with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance sent letters to members expressing strong support for the provision.        

WASHINGTON — U.S. inflation surged to a new four-decade high in June because of rising prices for fuel, food and rent, squeezing household budgets and pressuring the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively — trends that raise the risk of a recession. The government’s consumer price index soared 9.1% over the past year, the biggest yearly increase since 1981, with nearly half of the increase due to higher energy costs. The rising inflation has certainly not spared the trucking industry. “Right now, motor carriers are getting slammed by nightmarish surges in the price of diesel,” states a recent blog posting from the American Trucking Associations (ATA). “It’s especially hard on smaller fleets, which don’t operate at a scale to negotiate rates down or lock prices into a contract. These small businesses account for 97% of trucking companies in the U.S., running 20 trucks or fewer.” Even though diesel prices are inching down, the damage has already been done for many in the industry. Truck driver Lee Sanders told The Trucker that he started a two-truck dry van owner-operator company two years ago but has had to shut down due to the current economic circumstances affecting the trucking industry. “I just hedged my bet for too much and lost,” Sanders said. “I gave it a shot, and that’s all you can do. I am probably going to go try to get a company job to make ends meet right now. Who knows, I might give it a go on my own again one day.” Additionally, as Freightwaves reported recently, there are simply too many truck drivers for the amount of work available, meaning lower and lower pay. During the last major trucking recession in 2019, hundreds of trucking companies declared bankruptcy, unable to cover the costs of running a trucking company with deflating rates. Fleets as tiny as one driver comprise the bulk of these shuttering trucking companies, according to Freightwaves. Avery Vise, who is the vice president of trucking at FTR, said many of these drivers will join larger fleets rather than get flushed out of the market completely. Chris Tucker, owner of Full Coverage Freight, predicted in a June 10 Facebook post on the Rate Per Miles Masters group, which hosts about 33,000 trucking professionals, that the many truck drivers who flooded the industry amid unprecedented truck volumes would have to shut down their operations. Ill-prepared brokers would also face the same doom, he wrote. “I don’t think there’s enough freight out there to justify their existence anymore,” Tucker told FreightWaves. DIESEL’S SURGE When the price of diesel goes up, the cost of everything else follows. Inflation can’t be controlled without some relief in price of diesel, because all U.S. supply chains begin and end with our nation’s truck fleet. “Fortunately, this is a solvable problem,” the ATA blog post stated. ATA officials say they are calling on officials in Washington to take the following actions: Utilize the oil and natural gas found in the Gulf of Mexico by expediting lease sales and permits for offshore energy production. Fast-track onshore oil & natural gas permitting to spur expanded production. Announce realistic leasing and development opportunities for onshore & offshore energy. Expedite permitting for pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Encourage expedited carbon capture & sequestration rulemaking to ensure that America remains a world-leader in emissions reduction. OVERALL ECONOMIC IMPACT Accelerating inflation is a vexing problem for the Federal Reserve, too. The Fed is already engaged in the fastest series of interest rate hikes in three decades, which it hopes will cool inflation by tamping down borrowing and spending by consumers and businesses. The U.S. economy shrank in the first three months of the year, and many analysts believe the trend continued in the second quarter. “The Fed’s rate hikes are doing what they are supposed to do, which is kill off demand,” said Megan Greene, global chief economist at the Kroll Institute. “The trick is if they kill off too much and we get a recession.” The likelihood of larger rate hikes this year pushed stock indexes lower in afternoon trading. The central bank is expected to raise its key short-term rate later this month by a hefty three-quarters of a point, as it did last month. As consumers’ confidence in the economy declines, so have President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, posing a major political threat to Democrats in the November congressional elections. Forty percent of adults said in a June AP-NORC poll that they thought tackling inflation should be a top government priority this year, up from just 14% who said so in December. After years of low prices, a swift rebound from the 2020 pandemic recession — combined with supply-chain snags — ignited inflation. Consumers unleashed a wave of pent-up spending, spurred by vast federal aid, ultra-low borrowing costs and savings they had built up while hunkering down. As home-bound Americans spent heavily on furniture, appliances and exercise equipment, factories and shipping companies struggled to keep up and prices for goods soared. Russia’s war against Ukraine further magnified energy and food prices. In recent months, as COVID fears have receded, consumer spending has gradually shifted away from goods and toward services. Yet rather than pulling down inflation by reducing goods prices, the cost of furniture, cars, and other items has kept rising, while restaurant costs, rents and other services are also getting more expensive. The year-over-year leap in consumer prices last month followed an 8.6% annual jump in May. From May to June, prices rose 1.3%, following a 1% increase from April to May. Some economists believe inflation might be reaching a short-term peak. Gas prices, for example, have fallen from the eye-watering $5 a gallon reached in mid-June to an average of $4.63 nationwide Wednesday — still far higher than a year ago. Shipping costs and commodity prices have also begun to fall, and pay increases have slowed. Surveys show that Americans’ expectations for inflation over the long run have eased — a trend that often points to more moderate price increases over time. “While today’s headline inflation reading is unacceptably high, it is also out-of-date,” President Biden said Wednesday. “All major economies are battling this COVID-related challenge.” The latest disappointing data on inflation came out at the outset of Biden’s trip to the Middle East, where he will meet with officials from Saudi Arabia to discuss oil prices, among other subjects. Republican members of Congress have blamed the higher prices on Biden’s economic policies, specifically his $1.9 trillion financial support package approved in March. There have been signs that inflation was slowing before — last summer, and in April of this year — only for it to surge again in subsequent months. “There may be some relief in the July numbers — commodity prices have come off the boil, at least — but we are a very, very long way from inflation normalizing, and there is no tangible sign of downward momentum,” said Eric Winograd, an economist at asset manager at Alliance Bernstein. For now, the relentless pace of price increases is frustrating many Americans. Delores Bledsoe, a truck driver hauling freight from Carlisle, Pennsylvania to Wisconsin on Wednesday, said her fuel costs have tripled. “It’s making me want to get out of the truck and go drive an Uber,” said Bledsoe, who lives in Houston. “It’s depressing.” Some people are placing blame on companies for using inflation as a cover to raise prices beyond the amount they need to cover their own higher costs. “I feel the inflation pain every day,” Susana Hazard said this week outside a grocery store in New York City. “Every day, everything is going up and up, more than inflation — they’re price-adjusting. Because even if inflation doesn’t happen, they’ve raised the prices.” Most economists say corporate price gouging is, at most, one of many causes of runaway inflation and not the primary one. Housing and rental costs are rising steadily as solid job gains encourage more Americans to move out on their own. Rents have risen 5.8% compared with a year ago, the most since 1986. And the cost of decorating homes is still increasing at a rapid pace — furniture prices are up 13% from a year ago — even as retailers such as Walmart and Target experience rising inventories, which should help lower prices. The biggest shock has been energy prices, which soared 7.5% just from May to June. Gas prices have skyrocketed nearly 60% compared with a year ago. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices rose 0.7% from May to June, the biggest such spike in a year. Core prices jumped 5.9% from a year ago. Inflation is surging well beyond the United States, with 71 million people pushed into poverty in the three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.N. Development Program said last week. The war’s economic damage has been especially severe in Europe, with its reliance on Russian oil and natural gas squeezing businesses and consumers with sharply higher bills for utilities, groceries, gasoline and more. Inflation reached decades-high levels of 8.6% last month in the 19 countries that use the euro currency and 9.1% in the United Kingdom in May. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The average U.S. price for a gallon of diesel fuel is falling after weeks of seemingly unending increases. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), as of Tuesday, a gallon of diesel stood at just over $5.50 per gallon across the nation, down from just over $5.70 on June 27. The EIA report notes that the highest price for diesel is on the West Coast at more than $6.285 per gallon, which is down from more than $6.40 a gallon on June 27. The nation’s lowest diesel prices can be found along the Gulf Coast, according to the EIA, where a gallon can be found for $5.20 a gallon. Meanwhile, the average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline plunged 19 cents over the past two weeks to $4.86 per gallon. Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey that the continued decline comes as crude oil costs also fall. “Assuming oil prices do not shoot up from here, motorists may see prices drop another 10-20 cents as the oil price cuts continue making their way to street level,” Lundberg said in a statement. The average price at the pump is down 24 cents over the past month, but it’s $1.66 higher than it was one year ago. Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas was in the San Francisco Bay Area, at $6.14 per gallon. The lowest average was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at $4.19 per gallon. According to the survey, the average price of diesel dropped 13 cents since June 24 to $5.76 a gallon. OIL FUTURES Benchmark U.S. crude oil for August delivery fell $8.25 to $95.84 a barrel Tuesday. Brent crude for September delivery fell $7.61 to $99.49 a barrel. Wholesale gasoline for August delivery fell 20 cents to $3.26 a gallon. August heating oil fell 11 cents to $3.66 a gallon. August natural gas fell 27 cents to $6.16 per 1,000 cubic feet.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for states and municipalities to track and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including reducing idle time for big rigs at America’s ports. President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) makes available more than $27 billion in federal funding to help state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) meet their declining GHG targets. The new rule would take two steps to combat climate change: Establishing a national framework for tracking state-by-state progress by adding a new GHG performance management measure to the existing FHWA national performance measures to help states track performance and make more informed investment decisions. Creating a flexible system under which state DOTs and MPOs would set their own declining targets for on-road greenhouse gas emissions from roadway travel on the National Highway System. “With today’s announcement, we are taking an important step forward in tackling transportation’s share of the climate challenge, and we don’t have a moment to waste,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “Our approach gives states the flexibility they need to set their own emission reduction targets, while providing them with resources from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to meet those targets and protect their communities.” The proposed rule builds upon and would add greater transparency to the work that 24 states and the District of Columbia are already doing under state law GHG target-setting requirements, a news release stated. “Transportation is the leading source of GHGs in the U.S., and the Biden-Harris Administration has put forward an integrated approach to reducing emissions from the sector while ensuring our economy works for all Americans,” according to the news release. “This entails the use of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to help state and local governments meet their GHG reduction targets, in addition to efforts to help reduce transportation costs for the American people through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, which are in place to make driving more affordable by increasing fuel efficiency.” Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding is available through various programs over five years, including but not limited to: The Carbon Reduction Program will provide $6.4 billion in formula funding to states and local governments to develop carbon reduction strategies and fund a wide range of projects designed to reduce carbon emissions from on-road highway sources. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program will provide $5 billion to states primarily through a statutory formula to build out a national electric vehicle charging network, an important step towards making electric vehicle charging accessible to all Americans. A Discretionary Grant Program for Charging and Fueling Infrastructure will provide $2.5 billion in competitive funding to states and local governments to deploy electric vehicle charging and hydrogen, propane, and natural gas fueling infrastructure along designated alternative fuel corridors and in communities. The Congestion Relief Program will provide $250 million in competitive funding to advance innovative, multimodal solutions to reduce congestion and related economic and environmental costs in the most congested metropolitan areas of the U.S. The Reduction of Truck Emissions at Port Facilities Program will provide $400 million in competitive funding to reduce truck idling and emissions at ports, including through the advancement of port electrification. “BIL includes more than $5 billion for the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Program, which will help ensure the nation’s transit systems are tackling the climate crisis and working better for all of us,” the news release stated. BIL also includes $7.2 billion for the Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside that can help state and local governments carry out environmentally friendly pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects. Additionally, FTA’s $69 million Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Program provides funding to local communities to integrate land use and transportation planning with new fixed guideway or core capacity transit capital investment projects. BIL also expands funding opportunities through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) and Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) programs. In addition to new funding sources that states can access from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, new and existing formula programs provide states and local governments critical access to funding to encourage public transportation and other integrated land use and transportation projects and strategies that reduce air pollution by giving Americans more climate-friendly options for travel, and help state and local governments meet the emissions reduction targets this proposed rule would require them to set for themselves. “Every state and local government in this country is seeing the impacts of climate change on their communities and infrastructure.  States have a critical role to play as we work nationwide to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and slow those impacts,” said Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack. “State laws already require 24 states and the District of Columbia to set targets and track their greenhouse gas emissions and this proposed rule would bring this locally proven approach to scale nationwide.” The proposed rule “would help the transportation sector evolve from the leading source of emissions to become the biggest part of the solution, standardizing practices that many states have already established economy-wide, by making data comparable across states lines and metropolitan areas, and by facilitating better planning and outcomes for local communities,” according to the news release. The proposed rule is expected to publish in the Federal Register next week. A signed copy of the document submitted to the Federal Register for publication is available on FHWA’s website. A final rule may be published after FHWA has had the opportunity to review the comments submitted.

WASHINGTON — This year’s Operation Safe Driver Week is scheduled for Sunday, July 10, to Saturday, July 16, and will see law enforcement personnel in Canada, Mexico and the United States fanning out in force on thousands of miles of roadways. According to a news release from the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), officers will be issuing warnings and citations to commercial motor vehicle and passenger vehicle drivers “engaging in unsafe driving behaviors, such as speeding, distracted driving, following too closely, improper lane change and drunk or drugged driving.” Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) released its latest annual traffic crash report, showing that 38,824 lives were lost in traffic crashes nationwide in 2020 – the highest number of fatalities since 2007. And while the number of crashes and traffic injuries declined overall, fatal crashes increased by 6.8%. Among the alarming statistics in NHTSA’s report was the key finding that speed-related fatalities increased by 17%. Consequently, speeding, in particular, will be a dangerous driving behavior that officers will identify and target during Operation Safe Driver Week. “The rising fatalities on our roadways are a national crisis; we cannot and must not accept these deaths as inevitable,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The CVSA Operation Safe Driver Program was created to improve the driving behaviors of all drivers and reduce the number of crashes involving commercial motor vehicles on our roadways through educational and traffic enforcement strategies. Operation Safe Driver Week was created by CVSA with support from federal agencies in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., the motor carrier industry, and transportation safety organizations. “This safe driving initiative and campaign focuses specifically on drivers’ actions – whether it’s something a driver did, like speeding, or something they didn’t do, such as not paying attention to the driving task,” said CVSA President Capt. John Broers with the South Dakota Highway Patrol. “This focus on drivers’ behaviors is our effort to identify and educate drivers who are operating dangerously on our roadways, with the goal of preventing crashes from occurring.” To find out about Operation Safe Driver Week enforcement events in specific areas, drivers should contact the agency or department responsible for overseeing commercial motor vehicle safety in their area.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will resume publishing U.S. national and regional average on-highway diesel prices at 4 p.m. Daylight Savings Time today. The information will include diesel price data for June 20, June 27 and July 4, which had been delayed as a result of a hardware failure. “We will then return to publishing the full weekly Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update on our regular schedule,” the agency stated in a news release. “We are addressing issues with our Hourly Electric Grid Monitor, and we will provide an update on that data series on our website and our Twitter account when new information is available.” Diesel prices are down around the nation, but not by much. Land Line Media cites pay-for-information website Promiles.com, writing that the U.S. retail price per gallon for diesel has decreased by 4.6 cents to $5.635. Around the country, the recent spike in fuel prices has put a damper on the bottom lines for many small trucking companies and owner-operators. In southern Arkansas, where timber harvesting has traditionally been one of the most lucrative forms of trucking, J.B. Sams said he recently started clinching his eyes shut at the pump while filling up his Kenworth. “Man, I needed a new roof on my house because of a hailstorm a while back, but once these diesel prices went up, I haven’t been able to do anything but barely keep my head above water.” A couple states to the east in Alabama, Walter Sanders tells a similar story. He hauls cut timber for a small, family-run operation and has seen his diesel bills double over the past few months. “If I could eat diesel fuel, I’d be OK,” he said with a half-hearted laugh. “It’s been bad. Real bad. We need relief now.” Worries of a global recession are pummeling the price of oil, and should those fears be realized this year crude could cave to $65 a barrel, according to Citigroup, as reported by CBS News. This would mean far lower gas and diesel fuel prices but bad news for the overall economy. “Thus far, we’re not in a recessionary environment,” Ed Morse, the bank’s global head of commodity research, told CBS MoneyWatch. The economies of certain countries are slowing more than others, but the world as a whole is not in a recession — a scenario that’s more unlikely than not this year, he said.

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday launched a $1 billion first-of-its-kind pilot program aimed at helping reconnect cities and neighborhoods racially segregated or divided by road projects, pledging wide-ranging help to dozens of communities despite the program’s limited dollars. Under the Reconnecting Communities program, cities and states can now apply for the federal aid over five years to rectify harm caused by roadways that were built primarily through lower-income, Black communities after the 1950s creation of the interstate highway system. New projects could include rapid bus transit lines to link disadvantaged neighborhoods to jobs; caps built on top of highways featuring green spaces, bike lanes and pedestrian walkways to allow for safe crossings over the roadways; repurposing former rail lines; and partial removal of highways. Still, the grants, being made available under President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, are considerably less than the $20 billion the Democratic president originally envisioned. Advocacy groups say the money isn’t nearly enough to have a major impact on capital construction for more than 50 citizen-led efforts nationwide aimed at dismantling or redesigning highways — from Portland, Oregon, to New Orleans; St. Paul, Minnesota; Houston; Tampa, Florida; and Syracuse, New York. Meanwhile, some Republicans, including possible 2024 presidential contender Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have derided the effort as the “woke-ification” of federal policy, suggesting political crosswinds ahead in an election season. Flanked by Black leaders at the site of a soon-to-start rapid bus line in Birmingham, Alabama, Buttigieg highlighted the potential of federal infrastructure money to boost communities. Close to half of Birmingham’s population lives within one-half mile of planned stations along the new 15-mile bus corridor. City leaders say that will open up access around I-65, which cuts through the city’s Black neighborhoods, providing connections to jobs in the corridor as well as the University of Alabama at Birmingham and other schools. “Transportation can connect us to jobs, services and loved ones, but we’ve also seen countless cases around the country where a piece of infrastructure cuts off a neighborhood or a community because of how it was built,” Buttigieg said. “We can’t ignore the basic truth: that some of the planners and politicians behind those projects built them directly through the heart of vibrant populated communities,” he said. “Sometimes as an effort to reinforce segregation. Sometimes because the people there have less power to resist. And sometimes as part of a direct effort to replace or eliminate Black neighborhoods.” He described Reconnecting Communities as a broad “principle” of his department — not just a single program — to help remake infrastructure, with many efforts underway. The Transportation Department has aimed to help communities that feel racially harmed by highway expansions, with the Federal Highway Administration last year taking a rare step to pause a proposed $9 billion widening project in Houston, partly over civil rights concerns. That move likely spurred action in other places such as Austin, Texas, where environmental and racial justice groups recently filed a lawsuit to force the Texas transportation agency to better lay out the impacts of a proposed highway expansion there. Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, drew fire from some Republicans earlier this year when he said the federal government had an obligation to address the harms of racist design in highways. “There’s trees they’re putting in, they’re saying that highways are racially discriminatory. I don’t know how a road can be that,” DeSantis said in February, dismissing it as “woke.” In his remarks Thursday, Buttigieg pushed back at critics, noting that “there is nothing sacred about the status quo” with roads and bridges. “They are not divinely ordained; they are decisions,” he said. “And we can make better decisions than what came before.” Under the program, $195 million in competitive grants is to be awarded this year, of which $50 million will be devoted for communities to conduct planning studies. The department will also launch a “Thriving Communities” initiative to provide technical support for potential projects that serve disadvantaged communities alongside the Housing and Urban Development Department. The Transportation Department has previously estimated it could help as many as 20 U.S. communities under the new program to remove portions of interstates and redesign streets by tapping into other transportation funds. According to the department, communities that win the Reconnecting Communities grants but still need additional funds will be prioritized in their applications for other pots of federal transportation money. Dozens more communities could derive benefit from the planning grants. “Prior to 2021, the idea that we would deal with highway infrastructure that has divided communities was very much a fringe idea,” said Ben Crowther, coordinator for the Boston-based Freeway Fighters Network, which is supported by the Congress for the New Urbanism. “The Biden administration has really transformed that into mainstream thinking. We are thinking now this is something that is possible — that you can remove a highway and instead build safe streets that are walkable, add housing and address other community needs besides travel time.”

SAN ANTONIO — The driver of the tractor-trailer truck where at least 51 migrants were found dead in Texas was allegedly high on meth when he was nabbed, Texas authorities are reporting. Homero Zamorano, 45, was arrested in a nearby field after he allegedly abandoned the 18-wheeler with dozens of migrants stashed in the back in a desolate area in San Antonio on Monday. “He was very high on meth when he was arrested nearby and had to be taken to the hospital,” a law enforcement official told the San Antonio Express News. Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments. By Tuesday afternoon, medical examiners had potentially identified 34 of the victims, said Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents the district where the truck was abandoned. Those identities were not yet confirmed pending additional steps, such as fingerprints, and she described it as a challenge with no timeline on when the process might be finished. “It’s a tedious, tedious, sad, difficult process,” she said. The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio in what is believed to be the nation’s deadliest smuggling episode on the U.S.-Mexico border. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals, including four children. Three people have been arrested. The tragedy occurred at a time when huge numbers of migrants have been coming to the U.S., many of them taking perilous risks to cross swift rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago. With little information about the victims, desperate families of migrants from Mexico and Central America frantically sought word of their loved ones. Among the dead, 27 are believed to be of Mexican origin based on documents they were carrying, according to Rubén Minutti, the Mexico consul general in San Antonio. Several survivors were in critical condition with injuries such as brain damage and internal bleeding, he said. About 30 people had reached out to the Mexican Consulate looking for loved ones, officials said. Guatemala’s foreign ministry said late Tuesday that it had confirmed two hospitalized Guatemalans and was working to identify three possible Guatemalans among the dead. Honduras’ foreign relations ministry said it was working to confirm the identities of four people who died in the truck and carried Honduran papers. Eva Ferrufino, spokeswoman for Honduras’ foreign ministry, said her agency is working with the Honduras consulate in south Texas to match names and fingerprints and complete identifications. The process is painstaking because among the pitfalls are fake or stolen documents. Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary identified two people Tuesday who were hospitalized in San Antonio on Tuesday morning. But it turned out that one of the identification cards he shared on Twitter had been stolen last year in the southern state of Chiapas. Haneydi Antonio Guzman, 23, was safe and sound in a mountain community more than 1,300 miles away from San Antonio on Tuesday when she began receiving messages from family and friends. There is no phone signal there, but she has internet access. Journalists started showing up at her parents’ home in Escuintla — the address on her ID that was stolen and found in the truck — expecting to find her worried relatives. “That’s me on the ID, but I am not the person that was in the trailer and they say is hospitalized,” she said. “My relatives were contacting me worried, asking where I was,” Antonio Guzman said. “I told them I was fine, that I was in my house and I clarified it on by (Facebook page).” Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard deleted the original tweet identifying her without further comment. The other hospitalized victim Ebrard identified Tuesday turned out to be accurate. In the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, municipal officials in San Miguel Huautla were traveling to the community of 32-year-old José Luis Guzmán Vásquez late Tuesday to find out if his mother wanted to travel to San Antonio to be with him in the hospital. Manuel Velasco López, San Miguel Huautla’s municipal secretary, said that another cousin had been traveling with Guzmán Vásquez and was now considered missing. Yet another cousin, Alejandro López, told Milenio television that their family worked in farming and construction and that they migrated because “we don’t have anything but weaving hats, palms and handicrafts.” “Growing corn, wheat and beans is what we do in this region and that leads to a lot of our people emigrating and going to the United States,” he said. Miguel Barbosa, the governor of neighboring Puebla state, set off a scramble for information in the town of Izucar de Matamoros on Tuesday when he said publicly that two of the dead hailed from there. In the heavily migrant town, everyone was asking themselves if their friends or neighbors were among the dead found in the freight truck in Texas. Rumors abounded, but the city government said no dead had been confirmed from Izucar. But going to the United States is such a tradition that most youths here at least consider it. “All of the young people start to think about going (to the U.S.) as soon as they turn 18,” said migrant activist Carmelo Castañeda, who works with the nonprofit Casa del Migrante. “If there aren’t more visas, our people are going to keep dying.” Migrants typically pay $8,000 to $10,000 to be taken across the border and loaded into a tractor-trailer and driven to San Antonio, where they transfer to smaller vehicles for their final destinations across the United States, said Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio. Conditions vary widely, including how much water passengers get and whether they are allowed to carry cellphones, Larrabee said. Authorities think the truck discovered Monday had mechanical problems when it was left next to a railroad track in an area of San Antonio surrounded by auto scrapyards that brush up against a busy freeway, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. San Antonio has been a recurring scene of tragedy and desperation in recent years involving migrants in semitrailers. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city. More than 50 migrants were found alive in a trailer in 2018, driven by a man who said he was to be paid $3,000 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison. Other tragedies have occurred before migrants reached the U.S. In December, more than 50 died when a semitrailer rolled over on a highway in southern Mexico. In October, Mexican authorities reported finding 652 migrants packed into six trailers stopped at a military checkpoint near the border. During a vigil held Tuesday evening in the rain at a San Antonio park, many of the more than 50 people who attended expressed sadness, frustration and anger at the deaths and what they described as a broken immigration system. Back in Puebla, farmer Juan Sánchez Carrillo, 45, was sickened when he heard the news of the deaths in Texas. He himself narrowly escaped death, when he and his friends ran away from dozing migrant rustlers in the mountains near Otay Mesa near San Diego. The criminals — who Sanchez Carrillo believes were in cahoots with smugglers who brought him over the border — pointed rifles at the group of 35 migrants and threatened to kill them unless they came up with $1,000 each. “For the smugglers, we the migrants are not human,” Sánchez Carrillo said. “For them we are no more than merchandise.” The Trucker Staff contributed to this report.    

SAN ANTONIO — Fifty people died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat, one of the worst tragedies to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico to the U.S. More than a dozen people had been taken to hospitals, including four children. A city worker heard a cry for help from the truck on a lonely San Antonio back road shortly before 6 p.m. Monday and discovered the gruesome scene, Police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground near the trailer and bodies remained inside as authorities responded to the calamity. Forty-six people were found dead near the scene, authorities said, and two more people later died at a hospital, said Patti Tanner, a spokesperson at Baptist Health System in San Antonio. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said those who died had “families who were likely trying to find a better life.” “This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy,” Nirenberg said. It’s among the deadliest of the tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the U.S. border from Mexico. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One that President Joe Biden was “closely monitoring the absolutely horrific and heartbreaking reports” from San Antonio. Jean-Pierre pushed back against some Republican lawmakers who blamed the administration for the deaths. “Our prayers are with those who tragically lost their lives, their loved ones as well as those still fighting for their lives. We’re also grateful for the swift work of federal, state and local first responders,” Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. The home countries of all of the migrants and how long they were abandoned on the side of the road were not immediately known. Among them, 22 are from Mexico, seven are from Guatemala and two are from Honduras, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, head of the North America department in Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department, said on Twitter. “Our condolences,” he tweeted. “All responsible will be brought to justice.” South Texas has long been the busiest area for illegal border crossings. Migrants ride in vehicles through Border Patrol checkpoints to San Antonio, the closest major city, from which point they disperse across the United States. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, the county’s top elected official, said Tuesday that authorities believe the truck appeared to come from Laredo, a border city that is more than 150 miles south. “They had just parked it on the side of the road,” Wolff said. “Apparently had mechanical problems and left it there. The sheriff thinks it came across from Laredo.” Officials were trying to enlist help from neighboring counties to help with the number of bodies, he said. Other incidents have occurred long before migrants reached the U.S. border. In December, more than 50 died when a semitrailer filled with migrants rolled over on a highway in southern Mexico. In October, Mexican authorities reported finding 652 migrants packed into six trailers near the U.S. border. They were stopped at a military checkpoint. Officers arrived to find a body on the ground outside the trailer and a partially opened gate to the trailer. Three people were taken into custody, but it was unclear if they were definitively connected with human trafficking, McManus said. The trailer was gone Tuesday morning, but access to the area where it was found remained blocked. Of the 16 taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses, 12 were adults and four were children, said Fire Chief Charles Hood. The patients were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer, he said. “They were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion,” Hood said. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but there was no visible working AC unit on that rig.” Those in the trailer were part of a presumed migrant smuggling attempt into the United States, and the investigation was being led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, McManus said. Big rigs emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in U.S. border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas, which were then the busiest corridors for illegal crossings. Before that, people paid small fees to mom-and-pop operators to get them across a largely unguarded border. As crossing became exponentially more difficult after the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., migrants were led through more perilous terrain and paid thousands of dollars more. Heat poses a serious danger, particularly when temperatures can rise severely inside vehicles. Weather in the San Antonio area was mostly cloudy Monday, but temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Some advocates drew a link to the Biden administration’s border policies. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, wrote that he had been dreading such a tragedy for months. “With the border shut as tightly as it is today for migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, people have been pushed into more and more dangerous routes. Truck smuggling is a way up,” he wrote on Twitter. Stephen Miller, a chief architect of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, said, “Human smugglers and traffickers are wicked and evil” and that the administration’s approach to border security rewards their actions. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican running for reelection, was blunt in a tweet about the Democratic president: “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies.” Migrants — largely from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — have been expelled more than 2 million times under a pandemic-era rule in effect since March 2020 that denies them a chance to seek asylum but encourages repeat attempts because there are no legal consequences for getting caught. People from other countries, notably Cuba, Nicaragua and Colombia, are subject to Title 42 authority less frequently due to higher costs of sending them home, strained diplomatic relations and other considerations. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 557 deaths on the southwest border in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, more than double the 247 deaths reported in the previous year and the highest since it began keeping track in 1998. Most are related to heat exposure. CBP has not published a death tally for this year but said that the Border Patrol performed 14,278 “search-and-rescue missions” in a seven-month period through May, exceeding the 12,833 missions performed during the previous 12-month period and up from 5,071 the year before.

SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Police Department is reporting that as many as 42 immigrants were found dead Monday evening inside a semi-trailer on the city’s southwest side. As many as 16 others have been taken to area hospitals, police said. KSAT in San Antonio reports that several San Antonio police vehicles, as well as fire trucks and ambulances, are covering a portion of Quintana Road. The Trucker will update this story as soon as more details become available.

WASHINGTON — Furious about surging prices at the gasoline station and the supermarket, many consumers feel they know just where to cast blame: On greedy companies that relentlessly jack up prices and pocket the profits. Responding to that sentiment, the Democratic-led House of Representatives last month passed on a party-line vote — most Democrats for, all Republicans against — a bill designed to crack down on alleged price gouging by energy producers. Likewise, Britain last month announced plans to impose a temporary 25% windfall tax on oil and gas company profits and to funnel the proceeds to financially struggling households. Yet for all the public’s resentment, most economists say corporate price gouging is, at most, one of many causes of runaway inflation — and not the primary one. “There are much more plausible candidates for what’s going on,” said Jose Azar an economist at Spain’s University of Navarra. They include: Supply disruptions at factories, ports and freight yards. Worker shortages. President Joe Biden’s enormous pandemic aid program. COVID 19-caused shutdowns in China. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And, not least, a Federal Reserve that kept interest rates ultra-low longer than experts say it should have. The blame game is, if anything, intensifying after the U.S. government reported that inflation hit 8.6% in May from a year earlier, the biggest price spike since 1981. To fight inflation, the Fed is now belatedly tightening credit aggressively. On June 15, it raised its benchmark short-term rate by three-quarters of a point — its largest hike since 1994 — and signaled that more large rate hikes are coming. The Fed hopes to achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing” — slowing growth enough to curb inflation without causing the economy to slide into recession. For years, inflation had remained at or below the Fed’s 2% annual target, even while unemployment sank to a half-century low. But when the economy rebounded from the pandemic recession with startling speed and strength, the U.S. consumer price index rose steadily — from a 2.6% year-over-year increase in March 2021 to last month’s four-decade high. For a while at least — before profit margins at S&P 500 companies dipped early this year — the inflation surge coincided with swelling corporate earnings. It was easy for consumers to connect the dots: Companies, it seemed, were engaged in price-gouging. This wasn’t just inflation. It was greedflation. Asked to name the culprits behind the spike in gasoline prices, 72% of the 1,055 Americans polled in late April and early May by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government blamed profit-seeking corporations, more than the share who pointed to Russia’s war against Ukraine (69%) or Biden (58%) or pandemic disruptions (58%). And the verdict was bipartisan: 86% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans blamed corporations for inflated gas prices. “It’s very natural for consumers to see prices rising and get angry about it and then look for someone to blame,” said Christopher Conlon, an economist at New York University’s Stern School of Business who studies corporate competition. “You and I don’t get to set prices at the supermarket, the gas station or the car dealership. So people naturally blame corporations, since those are the ones they see raising prices.’’ Yet Conlon and many other economists are reluctant to indict — or to favor punishing — Corporate America. When the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business asked economists this month whether they’d support a law to bar big companies from selling their goods or services at an “unconscionably excessive price” during a market shock, 65% said no. Only 5% backed the idea. Just what combination of factors is most responsible for causing prices to soar “is still an open question,” economist Azar acknowledges. COVID-19 and its aftermath have made it hard to assess the state of the economy. Today’s economists have no experience analyzing the financial aftermath of a pandemic. Policymakers and analysts have been repeatedly blindsided by the path the economy has taken since COVID struck in March 2020: They didn’t expect the swift recovery from the downturn, fueled by vast government spending and record-low rates engineered by the Fed and other central banks. Then they were slow to recognize the gathering threat of high inflation pressures, dismissing them at first as merely a temporary consequence of supply disruptions. One aspect of the economy, though, is undisputed: A wave of mergers in recent decades has killed or shrunk competition among airlines, banks, meatpacking companies and many other industries. That consolidation has given the surviving companies the leverage to demand price cuts from suppliers, to hold down workers’ pay and to pass on higher costs to customers who don’t have much choice but to pay up. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston have found that less competition made it easier for companies to pass along higher costs to customers, calling it an “amplifying factor” in the resurgence of inflation. Josh Bivens, research director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, has estimated that nearly 54% of the price increases in nonfinancial businesses since mid-2020 can be attributed to “fatter profit margins,” versus just 11% from 1979 through 2019. Bivens conceded that neither corporate greed nor market clout has likely grown significantly in the past two years. But he suggested that during the COVID inflationary spike, companies have redirected how they use their market power: Many have shifted away from pressuring suppliers to cut costs and limiting workers’ pay and have instead boosted prices for customers. In a study of nearly 3,700 companies released last week, the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute concluded that markups and profit margins last year reached their highest level since the 1950s. It also found that companies that had aggressively raised prices before the pandemic were more likely to do so after it struck, “suggesting a role for market power as an explanatory driver of inflation″ Yet many economists aren’t convinced that corporate greed is the main culprit. Jason Furman, a top economic adviser in the Obama White House, said that some evidence even suggests that monopolies are slower than companies that face stiff competition to raise prices when their own costs rise, “in part because their prices were high to begin with.” Likewise, NYU’s Conlon cites examples where prices have soared in competitive markets. Used cars, for example, are sold in lots across the country and by numerous individuals. Yet average used-car prices have skyrocketed 16% over the past year. Similarly, the average price of major appliances, another market with plenty of competitors, jumped nearly 10% last month from a year earlier. By contrast, the price of alcoholic beverages has risen just 4% from a year ago even though the beer market is dominated by AB-Inbev and spirits by Bacardi and Diageo. “It is hard to imagine that AB-Inbev isn’t as greedy as Maytag,” Conlon said. So what has most driven the inflationary spike? “Demand,” said Furman, now at Harvard University. “Lots of government spending, lots of monetary support — all combined together to support extraordinarily high levels of demand. Supply couldn’t keep up, so prices rose.’’ Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimate that government aid to the economy during the pandemic, which put money in consumers’ pockets to help them endure the crisis and set off a spending spree, has raised inflation by about 3 percentage points since the first half of 2021. In report released in April, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis blamed global supply chain bottlenecks for playing a “significant role” in inflating factory costs. They found that it added a staggering 20 percentage points to wholesale inflation in manufacturing last November, raising it to 30%. Still, even some economists who don’t blame greedflation for the price spike of the past year say they think governments should try to restrict the market power of monopolies, perhaps by blocking mergers that reduce competition. The idea is that more companies vying for the same customers would encourage innovation and makes the economy more productive. Even so, tougher antitrust policies wouldn’t likely do much to slow inflation anytime soon. “I find it helpful to think about competition like diet and exercise,” NYU’s Conlon said. “More competition is a good thing. But, like diet and exercise, the payoffs are long term. “Right now, the patient is in the emergency room. Sure, diet and exercise are still a good thing. But we need to treat the acute problem of inflation.”

WASHINGTON — An oil industry meeting with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to lower gas prices and boost domestic oil supplies was constructive, but did not produce a major breakthrough, administration and industry officials said Thursday. This as the national average for a gallon of diesel fuel sits at $5.718. Regular gasoline sits at just under $5 per gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration. The closed-door meeting came as President Joe Biden called on Congress to suspend federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel as a way to relieve high gas prices that have frustrated drivers and spurred inflation. The Democratic president also called on states to suspend their own gas taxes or provide similar relief, and he delivered a public critique of the energy industry for prioritizing profits over production. “It doesn’t reduce all the pain but it will be a big help,” Biden said Wednesday, referring to the national average of $5 per gallon for gas. Biden said he was doing his part and now wants Congress, states and industry to do their parts as well. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear took action Thursday to combat any signs of price gouging at the pump, touting it as a consumer protection measure amid sky-high gas prices straining Kentuckians’ budgets. In a joint statement, the American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers said the meeting with Granholm “should send a positive signal to the market that the U.S. is committed to long-term investment in a strong U.S. refining industry and aligning policies to reflect that commitment.’ Challenges facing their industry are complex, the groups said, from Russia’s war in Ukraine to “market imbalances” leftover from COVID-19 shutdowns that led to reduced demand and production. “Our industry will continue to … work with policymakers to unlock American energy, fuel economic recovery and strengthen our national security,” they said. In a separate statement, the Energy Department said Granholm reminded the oil companies and refiners that their customers, workers and communities “are feeling the pain at the pump because of Putin’s price hike,” a reference to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s February invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a ban on Russian oil by the United States and many Western allies. “At a time when Putin is using energy as a weapon, oil companies must deliver solutions to ensure secure, affordable supply,” the Energy Department said. The meeting at the Energy Department included executives from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Marathon and Phillips 66 and other large companies. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the meeting with oil executives “a productive dialogue” and said Granholm “made clear that the administration believes it’s imperative that companies increase supply of gas.” Granholm also “reiterated that the president is prepared to act quickly and decisively using the tools available to him, as appropriate, on sensible recommendations,” Jean-Pierre said. Biden has already released one million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and rallied allies to release their own reserves. Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, who told Biden this week that the administration “has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry,” was conciliatory Thursday. “Today’s meeting was a constructive conversation about addressing both near-term issues and the longer-term stability of energy markets,” Wirth said in a statement. “We appreciate Secretary Granholm’s invitation to participate in the conversation, which was an important step toward achieving greater energy security, economic prosperity and environmental protection.” Shell U.S. President Gretchen Watkins said she told Granholm that her company and others “have diminished refining capacity because we’re busy converting century-old assets to produce biofuel,” such as ethanol and biodiesel. U.S. law requires billions of gallons of corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels as a way to produce cleaner gasoline and slow climate change. While acknowledging that “Americans are feeling a lot of price pain,” Watkins said in an email that she asked Granholm to “look closely at accelerating the permitting process” to increase oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, “while clearing a path for future wind development” off the U.S. East Coast. Biden in recent weeks has criticized oil producers and refiners for maximizing profits and making “more money than God,” rather than increasing production in response to higher prices as the economy recovers from the pandemic and feels the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Responding to Wirth’s criticism, Biden said Tuesday that the oil CEO is “mildly sensitive,” adding: “I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly.” He called Wednesday for a three-month suspension of the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal tax on gas and the 24.4 cents-a-gallon federal tax on diesel fuel. If the gas savings were fully passed along to consumers, people would save just under $3 for a 15-gallon fill-up of gas. Biden’s push faces uphill odds in Congress, where lawmakers in both parties expressed skepticism and outright opposition. Many economists also are wary of a gas tax holiday. High gas prices pose a fundamental threat to Biden’s electoral and policy ambitions. They’ve caused confidence in the economy to slump to lows that bode poorly for defending Democratic control of the House and the Senate in November. Biden’s past efforts to cut gas prices — including the release of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve and greater ethanol blending this summer — have not delivered savings at the pump, a risk that carries over to the idea of a gas tax holiday. The president can do remarkably little to fix prices that are set by global markets, profit-driven companies, consumer demand and aftershocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the embargoes that followed. The underlying problem is a shortage of oil and refineries that produce gas, a challenge a tax holiday cannot necessarily fix. Granholm told oil executives that she hopes Thursday’s meeting will be part of an ongoing dialogue, the Energy Department said. In Kentucky, the Democratic governor signed an executive order Thursday declaring a state of emergency in response to gas prices hovering close to $5 per gallon. His action activated Kentucky’s price gouging laws. With his action, Kentucky consumers can report suspected price gouging at the pump to state Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office. Beshear said “every little bit helps” in trying to offer relief to consumers reeling from soaring fuel prices. He acknowledged a governor’s options are limited in dealing with global economic unrest. Cameron responded by urging Kentuckians to alert his office about any signs of price gouging. But the hot-button issue reflected the political tension between the Democratic governor and the Republican attorney general who wants his job. Beshear wrote to Cameron in early June asking if the topic of gas prices warranted investigation. In a recent reply, Cameron blamed Democratic President Joe Biden’s energy policies for the nation’s rising fuel prices. Cameron accused Biden of pursing an “extreme ‘green’ agenda.” Cameron told Beshear that issuing a state of emergency would offer “minimal — if any — additional relief” to Kentuckians. But he pledged to fully enforce the price gouging laws. Beshear offered a public reply at his weekly news conference Thursday. “I believe strongly that even minimal relief is better than no relief,” the governor said. Cameron’s letter said his office had already been monitoring gas prices in Kentucky, and that 263 complaints had been logged with his office since the start of 2022. It’s the kind of give-and-take that Kentuckians can expect as the political banter heats up going into the 2023 statewide elections in the Bluegrass State. Cameron is among several candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor next year, when Beshear will seek a second term. The governor has taken other steps to try to offer relief to Kentuckians battered by rising prices. Beshear recently took action to freeze Kentucky’s gas tax, preventing a 2-cent-per-gallon increase that would have taken effect July 1. The action is expected to save Kentuckians an estimated $35.4 million. In February, the governor took executive action to grant relief to Kentucky taxpayers hit with pandemic-related increases in their vehicle property tax bills. Beshear touts the state’s economic development gains during his term. He has landed the state’s two largest economic development projects ever — both battery plants. The governor said Thursday that Kentucky’s unemployment rate has fallen to historic lows in back-to-back months. And the state has the fewest number of residents drawing unemployment benefits since 2000, he said. Republican House Speaker David Osborne later said that the jobless rates show that the “pro-worker, pro-job policies” enacted by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature are working. “This announcement is not the result of press conference promises or ceremonial actions, but rather the hard work, difficult decision making, and forward-thinking leadership of legislators who know firsthand how heavy-handed government overreach harms the people of Kentucky,” Osborne said. State GOP spokesman Sean Southard, meanwhile, pointed to an aluminum producer’s decision to temporarily idle its smelter in Hawesville, Kentucky, as a result of skyrocketing energy costs “Governor Beshear loves to say Kentucky’s economy is on fire, and thanks to the Biden-Beshear agenda, nothing could be more true,” Southard said in a statement. The Trucker Staff contributed to this report.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Work has started in Tennessee on a $141 million project to build travel lanes and a roundabout intersection on the Interstate 55 interchange near a heavily traveled bridge connecting Memphis to Arkansas. Lane closures began Monday at the I-55 and Crump interchange close to downtown Memphis and near one of two bridges that cross the Mississippi River from the city, said Mike Welch, a regional director of operations for the Tennessee Department of Transportation. I-55 runs north-south, from Chicago to Louisiana, and it is one of two major U.S. interstates that travel through Memphis — the east-west Interstate 40 is the other. Motorists have been warned of lane closures during the project, which officials said is estimated to be completed in 2025. Improvements to the interchange at I-55 and Crump Boulevard — also known as U.S. Highway 78 — include new travel lanes for main interstate traffic, TDOT said. That will eliminate the use of “single-lane, low-speed ramps” to continue on I-55, the department said. A roundabout intersection will replace the existing cloverleaf interchange and the I-55 river bridge deck will undergo repairs, the department said. Nashville-based Bell & Associates Construction won the contract with the lowest bid at about $141.2 million, TDOT said.

DALLAS — There is little evidence that fuel prices, which are setting records almost weekly, will drop anytime soon. This has many economists concerned about the cycle of the supply chain, especially when it comes to commercial motor vehicles. According to ACT Research’s latest release of the North American Commercial Vehicle Outlook, a mild recession may be on the horizon. “We find ourselves in a turbulent environment, where still significant positive and increasingly negative economic forces are crashing into one another,” Kenny Vieth, ACT president and senior analyst, said. “With inflationary shocks emanating from Ukraine, the Fed’s task of engineering a soft landing has become increasingly challenging.” He continued, “We believe downward pressures are building, and the probability of recession continues to grow. We think the probability of a mild recession is now nearly as likely as that of our base-case scenario. With the current head of steam that includes healthy consumer and business balance sheets, strong employment demand, and pent-up manufacturing sector activity, this inflation driven economic slowdown is on one hand somewhat unique. On the other, traditional recession predictors are in play: Fed rate hikes, high energy prices, negative exogenous events and falling equity valuations come to mind. We believe the odds of a recession materializing, in some form or fashion, are essentially 50/50 relative to our slowing topline growth into a modest freight recession base case.” Rising prices at the pump are a key driver in the highest inflation that Americans have seen in 40 years. Gasoline set a record $5.10 national average per gallon over the weekend. Diesel has been at a record $5.70 per gallon, on average, for a few weeks now. And unlike gasoline prices, diesel prices can directly affect the goods and services Americans rely on to live their daily lives. Diego Davalos, owner of Houston Affordable Movers, told the Houston Chronicle that he’s had to double his transportation fee to help offset the $800 a day he spends fueling his moving trucks on the way to apartment complexes around Houston. But the increase to $140 from $70 is more than some customers can afford. “We’re losing repeat customers,” he said, noting that revenue has fallen by about 15 percent year over year, “because we’re charging more than we did last time.” Large companies such as tank barge operator Houston-based Kirby Corp. and Omaha-based rail company Union Pacific have contracts that factor in the fluctuating the cost of diesel, according to the Chronicle’s report. Smaller shipping companies in Houston are working to do the same. JH Walker Trucking now charges fuel surcharges across the entirety of its business after recent diesel price hikes, said Houston Walker, the company’s chief financial officer. Everyone seems to have a favorite villain for the high cost of filling up. Some blame President Joe Biden. Others say it’s because Russian President Vladimir Putin recklessly invaded Ukraine. It’s not hard to find people, including Democrats in Congress, who accuse the oil companies of price gouging. As with many things in life, the answer is complicated. WHAT IS HAPPENING? Gasoline prices have been surging since April 2020, when the initial shock of the pandemic drove prices under $1.80 a gallon, according to government figures. They hit $3 in May 2021 and cruised past $4 this March. On Saturday, the nationwide average for a gallon ticked just above $5, a record, according to auto club AAA, which has tracked prices for years. The average price jumped 18 cents in the previous week, and was $1.92 higher than this time last year. State averages ranged from $6.43 a gallon in California to $4.52 in Mississippi. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Several factors are coming together to push gasoline prices higher. Global oil prices have been rising — unevenly, but sharply overall — since December. The price of international crude has roughly doubled in that time, with the U.S. benchmark rising nearly as much, closing Friday at more than $120 a barrel. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting sanctions by the United States and its allies have contributed to the rise. Russia is a leading oil producer. The United States is the world’s largest oil producer, but U.S. capacity to turn oil into gasoline is down 900,000 barrels of oil per day since the end of 2019, according to the Energy Department. Tighter oil and gasoline supplies are hitting as energy consumption rises because of the economic recovery. Finally, Americans typically drive more starting around Memorial Day, adding to the demand for gasoline. WHAT CAN BE DONE TO GET MORE OIL? Analysts say there are no quick fixes; it’s a matter of supply and demand, and supply can’t be ramped up overnight. If anything, the global oil supply will grow tighter as sanctions against Russia take hold. European Union leaders have vowed to ban most Russian oil by the end of this year. The U.S. has already imposed a ban even as Biden acknowledged it would affect American consumers. He said the ban was necessary so that the U.S. does not subsidize Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Defending freedom is going to cost,” he declared. The U.S. could ask Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or Iran to help pick up the slack for the expected drop in Russian oil production, but each of those options carries its own moral and political calculations. Republicans have called on Biden to help increase domestic oil production — for example, by allowing drilling on more federal lands and offshore, or reversing his decision to revoke a permit for a pipeline that could carry Canadian oil to Gulf Coast refineries. However, many Democrats and environmentalists would howl if Biden took those steps, which they say would undercut efforts to limit climate change. Even if Biden ignored a big faction of his own party, it would be months or years before those measures could lead to more gasoline at U.S. service stations. At the end of March, Biden announced another tapping of the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down gasoline prices. The average price per gallon has jumped 77 cents since then, which analysts say is partly because of a refining squeeze. WHY IS U.S. REFINING DOWN? Some refineries that produce gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and other petroleum products shut down during the first year of the pandemic, when demand collapsed. While a few are expected to boost capacity in the next year or so, others are reluctant to invest in new facilities because the transition to electric vehicles will reduce demand for gasoline over the long run. The owner of one of the nation’s largest refineries, in Houston, announced in April that it will close the facility by the end of next year. WHO IS HURTING? Higher energy prices hit lower-income families the hardest. Workers in retail and the fast-food industry can’t work from home — they must commute by car or public transportation. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association estimates that the 20% of families with the lowest income could be spending 38% of their income on energy including gasoline this year, up from 27% in 2020. WHEN WILL IT END? It could be up to motorists themselves — by driving less, they would reduce demand and put downward pressure on prices. “There has got to be some point where people start cutting back, I just don’t know what the magic point is,” said Patrick De Haan, an analyst for the gas-shopping app GasBuddy. “Is it going to be $5? Is it going to be $6, or $7? That’s the million-dollar question that nobody knows.” The Trucker Staff contributed to this report.

FRIENDSHIP, Ark.  — Three people were killed after at least a dozen vehicles collided in different spots along heavily traveled Interstate 30 during thunderstorms in southwestern Arkansas, state police said. The crashes happened Wednesday afternoon in the eastbound lanes of the interstate near Friendship, Arkansas, about 50 miles southwest of Little Rock, the Arkansas Department of Transportation said. The wrecks, which began with a two-vehicle collision that led to at least two other chain-reaction crashes, were weather-related, Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said. The crashes shut down all lanes of busy Interstate 30, which links Little Rock to Dallas. As of Thursday morning, the westbound lanes were still closed in the area. The Arkansas Department of Transportation said that a portion of the highway would need to be reconstructed due to damage from the fire’s extreme heat. To check the latest road conditions throughout the state of Arkansas, click here to access iDriveArkansas.     Arkansas State Police reported multiple fatalities Wednesday afternoon and troopers were working to account for all of the motorists involved. Sadler said Wednesday night that not everyone had been accounted for. “Troopers are going through every vehicle to search for any evidence of deceased that may still be trapped in the wreckage,” Sadler said. A fire was reported at one of the crash sites, police said, and video from the scene showed multiple large trucks burning. Traffic was so paralyzed that state workers distributed snacks and water to stranded motorists about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The deadly crashes happened two days after five people were killed and five others injured in a collision between a van and a large truck in southeastern Arkansas. In that crash on Monday, police have said the driver of the van apparently failed to yield when crossing U.S. 65. The Trucker Staff contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) and their member companies have filed a lawsuit to delay California’s clean truck regulation. Dubbed the Heavy-Duty Omnibus (HDO) rule, the measure is designed to slash air pollution from new diesel vehicles by reducing allowable oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions from heavy-duty trucks by roughly 75% below current standards beginning in 2024 and 90% in 2027. NOx emissions are dangerous to public health by themselves and are precursors to ground-level ozone, or smog. In addition to cleaning up NOx, the HDO rule looks to institutionalize fine particulate matter (soot) pollution controls and prevent backsliding. These reductions add up to $36 billion in California-wide health benefits from 3,900 avoided premature deaths and 3,150 hospitalizations by 2050, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The lawsuit, filed May 27 by EMA in U.S. District Court in Central California, claims the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) adoption of the HDO regulation failed to comply with a provision of the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) that requires a four-year lead-time for implementing emissions standards on new trucks. “Truck and engine manufacturers are proud that today’s modern engines reduce harmful emissions to near zero levels, and we are committed to building still cleaner products – but CARB must provide manufacturers the minimum four years of leadtime mandated by Congress, said EMA President Jed Mandel. “We acknowledge that the Clean Air Act gives CARB the authority to establish California-specific emissions standards and regulations; however, in doing so, CARB must follow Congress’s requirements. This lawsuit is simply to ensure that CARB follows all of the prescribed rules – one of which is intended to maximize the likelihood of the smooth and successful implementation of new emission standards.” Many engine manufacturers say they are already working to help clean up emissions. “We are investing in a range of solutions to lead the industry on the path to a zero-emissions future. We are taking steps today to turn our 2050 targets into real-world products and applications,” said Tom Linebarger, chairman & CEO of Cummins Inc. Jim Farley, president & CEO of Ford Motor Company, said:  “We are moving now to deliver breakthrough electric vehicles for the many rather than the few. It’s about creating good jobs that support American families, an ultra-efficient, carbon-neutral manufacturing system, and a growing business that delivers value for communities, dealers and shareholders.” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said that his company “will be the industry champion in climate change mitigation, becoming carbon net zero by 2038, with a 50% reduction by 2030. Taking a leadership role in decarbonization, as well as a decisive step forward in the circular economy, is our contribution to a sustainable future.” Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks North America, said: “Volvo Trucks is committed to lead the commercial transport industry towards more sustainable solutions by advancing electromobility. We will continue to invest in and drive the development of this technology, both globally and right here in North America.” Mandel concluded: “Manufacturers and our customers should not be forced to short circuit the design, development and integration process, and CARB should not be allowed to circumvent Congress’ clear mandate to provide adequate lead time. We urge the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to reaffirm the minimum four-year lead time requirement. We hope this matter will be resolved quickly so that manufacturers have the lead time and regulatory certainty needed to develop and build the products our customers – and our economy – depend on.”

COLUMBUS, Ind – According to this quarter’s issue of ACT Research’s Trailer Components Report, the U.S. trailer manufacturers are rapidly filling available 2022 production slots, with both dry van and reefer build-to-backlog stretching deep into December. ACT Research’s U.S. New Trailer Components and Materials Forecast provides those in the trailer production supply chain, as well as those who invest in said suppliers and commodities, with forecast quantities of components and raw materials required to support the trailer forecast for the coming five years, according to a news release. It includes near-term quarterly predictions for two years, while the latter three years of the forecast are shown in annual details. Additionally, analysis is segmented into two categories: those needed for the structural composition of new trailers and those used in the production of undercarriage assembly. “Overall, we expect orders and production to travel in lockstep until 2023 orderboards officially open,” said Frank Maly, Director–CV Transportation Analysis and Research at ACT Research. He continued, “We expect backlog to contract as we move through late spring and early summer, but the yet-to-be-determined date for opening the 2023 orderboards will reverse the backlog contraction and likely quickly extend the backlog well into next year.” Maly added, “While OEMs continue to negotiate with fleets, that effort is building a large group of staged/planned orders that are not yet officially posted to the backlog. Once OEMs gain sufficient confidence in their supply chain and labor availability to open 2023 production slots, expect a surge of orders to be ‘officially’ accepted.” He also noted, “OEMs continue to very closely control order acceptance. Their efforts border on order allocation, with discussions indicating that larger fleets might be getting better reception by the OEMs than the small and medium fleets and dealers. Component and material challenges are certainly a driving force, as are staffing issues, but less so than in the previous quarter. There was some supply chain relief that occurred at the end of the first quarter. While we would expect that to continue during the next few quarters, progress will still likely be a bit choppy.”

WASHINGTON — Although the price for a gallon of diesel fuel dropped slightly this week, the White House is considering an emergency declaration to release diesel from a stockpile in an effort to address a supply shortage and to help prices further drop, an administration official said on Monday. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price for a gallon of diesel dropped to $5.571 per gallon on Monday. That’s down from $5.623 a gallon on May 5. U.S. President Joe Biden has said that tackling high inflation and gas prices is the priority of his administration ahead of congressional elections in November. Republicans seeking to regain control of Congress have used the surge in prices to bludgeon Democrats. Diesel is essential for the U.S economy, powering farms and the construction sector along with the trucks, trains and boats that help move goods. Rising diesel prices will help drive up inflation, which has hit 40-year highs. The White House is considering tapping the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, created in 2000 to help with supply issues and used only once in 2012 in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The impact from such a release would be limited by the relatively small size of the reserve, which only contains 1 million barrels of diesel. “We have teed up this reserve option to stay ahead of the problem, and will not hesitate to use other levers at our disposal to support families and the recovery,” a White House official said. The situation is even worse in the U.S. Northeast, where a number of refineries have shuttered since 2000, according to a report from Reuters. For instance, the average price for a gallon of diesel in New York state is $6.52 a gallon, up 102% from a year ago, according to AAA. U.S. distillate stocks hit their lowest level since 2005 two weeks ago and currently sit at 105.3 million barrels, while stocks on the U.S. East Coast hit an all-time low as of May 6 before rebounding in the most recent week to 22.5 million barrels, according to the latest federal data. “We need all the help we can get. I know people mock the phrase ‘Putin’s price increase,’ but we have a supply disruption on our hands because of the Russia-Ukraine war,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, referring to an argument Democrats have made that blames higher fuel prices on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, told Reuters. “Exports of distillate fuels have been at very high levels, so it’s pretty clear we’re all in this together globally. It’s time to tap them,” Kilduff said.