Latest News Updates From Michele Fuetsch

House and Senate budget negotiators have agreed on a budget deal that maintains current highway spending levels through Fiscal Year 2014.

The Oregon Trucking Association has filed a petition asking that during the fire season timber haulers in the state be exempted from the hours-of-service rule provision that requires drivers to take 30-minute breaks every eight hours.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and five co-sponsors have introduced a bill they said would prevent fraud in the hiring of independent contractors.

Trucks will have to pay $10 more starting Dec. 1 to travel into Manhattan across the bridges or through the tunnels operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) collected the last toll on State Route 400 on Nov. 22, keeping the state’s promise to end tolling on the road once its debt had been retired.

Discounts for truckers on a well-known Texas toll road, State Highway 130, are ending Dec. 1, earlier than planned.

Federal Highway Administration officials said the Primary Freight Network that Congress last year told them to draw up has resulted in an inadequate road map that doesn’t represent the most critical highway elements in the freight system that exist in the United States.

The Alliance for Toll Free Interstates is recruiting members to join truck-stop operators, truckers and other highway users to fight attempts by states or Congress to toll existing interstate highways.

Minnesota has announced that 10 highway projects will be funded under the $300 million Corridors of Commerce program created this year to help improve freight mobility across the state.