News Briefs - June 12
The Latest Headlines:
- Caterpillar Says Third Engine Gets EPA Approval
- Officials Consider Third Border Crossing in Detroit
- Import Prices Fall 0.3% in May
- Price of Crude Oil Falls After OPEC Decision
- DOT to Retest Suspected Diluted Samples
- Officials Consider Third Border Crossing in Detroit
Caterpillar Says Third Engine Gets EPA Approval
Caterpillar Inc. said Thursday it had received Environmental Protection Agency certification for its C15 engine.The Peoria, Ill.-based company said in a release that full production of the engine, offered in the 435 to 550 horsepower range, would begin in the third quarter.
The C15 is the third EPA-certified engine with Acert technology, the company said. Earlier this year, the Caterpillar C7 and C9 engines were certified for use in trucks, school buses and transit buses.
(Click here for the full press release.)
Officials Consider Third Border Crossing in Detroit
Officials from the United States and Canada are stepping up efforts to establish a third border crossing between Detroit and Ontario as a way to ease congestion on the existing crossings, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.The Canada-U.S.-Ontario-Michigan Border Transportation Partnership is eyeing three possibilities for a tunnel or bridge, each costing between $400 million and $600 million. The proposals are to twin the Ambassador Bridge with another span, build another bridge near Zug Island or convert a train tunnel in southwest Detroit to a twin train and truck tunnel.
The push for the move comes on the heels of a recent study that shows Michigan and Ontario could lose $6.9 billion in jobs and trade by 2030, AP said.
The Detroit border currently handles $92 billion in trade per year, or roughly 25% of the total U.S.-Canadian trade. Transport Topics
Import Prices Fall 0.3% in May
U.S. import prices fell for the second consecutive month in May as costs declined for a variety of goods, the Labor Department reported.In other reports released Thursday, retail sales increased 0.1% and weekly jobless claims declined by 17,000. (Click here for the full story.)
Import prices dropped 0.3% after a revised 3.0% fall in April as the cost of food, industrial supplies, petroleum and capital goods imports all declined.
Analysts said this report only added to growing deflation fears. Deflation is a prolonged period of falling prices, and the Federal Reserve said it could cut interest rates later this month to combat possible deflation, the Associated Press reported.
Export prices rose 0.1%, Labor said, the fourth increase in the past five months. Transport Topics
Price of Crude Oil Falls After OPEC Decision
The price of crude oil declined Thursday morning, a day after OPEC decided to leave production quotas unchanged, Bloomberg reported.Crude oil is distilled down to motor fuels like diesel and gasoline, both of which are used to power the trucking industry.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for July settlement was down 23 cents to $32.13 a barrel, while Brent crude for August delivery on London fell 27 cents to $27.60 a barrel, Bloomberg said.
OPEC on Wednesday agreed to maintain a sales target of 25.4 million barrels a day. The group will meet again July 31. Transport Topics
DOT to Retest Suspected Diluted Samples
The Department of Transportation said it would retest truck drivers and others required to undergo random drug testing, if initial testing indicates the urine sample may have been diluted to lessen the presence of creatinine.DOT said it based its decision on some transportation workers actually having less of a concentration than normal of the chemical that is produced by muscle and excreted in urine. Usually, creatinine levels range from about 20 to 350 milligrams per deciliter of urine.
Lesser concentrations of the chemical aroused suspicion because they suggest the person drank a large quantity of water to lower the concentration of drugs.
Under a new law effective June 2, a “diluted” sample would not cause a person to be terminated, as some companies have done in the past, but would require an unannounced re-collection that would be observed.
An estimated 40 million U.S. workers are subject to drug testing in the workplace and that includes truck drivers, pipeline workers and employees in certain railroad, maritime, aviation and mass transit jobs. Transport Topics
This story appeared in the June 9 print edition of Transport Topics
