Last month, American Trucking Associations (ATA) and Volvo Trucks North America, part of the Volvo Group based in Gothenburg, Sweden, co-sponsored an event at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C. “The Future of Freight Transportation” was attended by more than 100 transportation executives and other stakeholders and served as a timely forum to discuss important issues affecting the industry in years to come — particularly as a new decade of challenges begins.

The purpose of event was to spark a dialogue that would help the industry identify how best to address the transportation challenges created by the growing U.S. population and increased demand for freight along three fronts: truck productivity, environment/fuel efficiency and safety. Representatives from Volvo Trucks North America and ATA moderated three panel discussions which included participants from commercial trucking companies, truck drivers and industry associations.

Though the group acknowledged that the industry had made a great deal of progress reducing accidents and emissions, the general consensus was that the most effective low-cost strategies have already been widely adopted. And so the question on the table remained: Is there another way to have a substantial impact on both safety and greenhouse gas emissions?

Most concluded that the silver bullet is to increase truck productivity. With that said, it’s difficult to convince the public and members of Congress that it’s safer even if we have the research to back it up. It’s simply not an intuitive concept. One of the most important comments to come out of the panel was that the debate about truck productivity is no longer about whether the science supports increased limits, but whether policy and politics will allow commonsense changes. We need to adapt the trucking industry’s rules and regulations to a changing world — and more productive vehicles would yield greater fuel efficiency, enhance safety and relieve congestion.

The event at the Swedish Embassy was truly a substantive, pragmatic discussion that enabled broad exploration of the trucking industry, where we’ve been and what we have yet to accomplish. We’ve got a great deal to be proud of, particularly with the progress we’ve made on both environmental and safety issues. The fact that truck productivity emerged as a common thread in each of the three panels was powerful and helped reveal and confirm to all those in attendance that the issue is indeed one that will take center stage in 2011 and beyond.

Over the course of history, the White House Rose Garden has been the venue for many Presidential decisions which heralded a new direction for our country. Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to participate in one such event that, hopefully, we can look back on years from now and recall as the beginning of important change for our citizens, our nation and our industry.

The event was the signing by President Barack Obama of an official presidential memorandum on Fuel Efficiency Standards, which directed his administration to establish fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions standards for commercial medium- and heavy-duty vehicles beginning with the nation’s 2014 models.

In a country so reliant on fossil fuels, increasing fuel efficiency while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a goal worthy of everyone. The President’s action recognized the efforts of a group of industry leaders who see this goal as not only worthy for the environment, but necessary for our business.  And that’s the Heavy-Duty Fuel Efficiency Leadership Group, a diverse coalition of trucking fleets and related technology providers formed earlier this year.

The mission of the group is to assist federal agencies in formulating effective policies to reduce GHG emissions and increase fuel efficiency in heavy-duty commercial vehicles, while avoiding unintended consequences that could disrupt the industry and our economy.

This group, of which Con-way is a founding member, believes that a strong GHG/fuel efficiency program can result in significant environmental, economic and national security benefits. Encouragingly, the President’s call to action emphasized the importance of collaboration between government and industry as the path forward to developing, refining and implementing effective policy.

To that end, the leadership group created and presented to the Administration and federal agencies a Statement of Principles to support and help guide the rulemaking process. These basic principles call for future regulations to:

• Leverage and build upon on existing programs proven to be effective

• Emphasize the prompt deployment of viable technologies

• Recognize the diversity of medium- and heavy-duty fleets

• Are complemented by financial incentives and transportation policies that accelerate results

At Con-way, we’ve already taken many critical steps in that direction. We’ve implemented initiatives that include reducing the speed of our tractors, moving to single wide-base tires for decreased rolling resistance and better fuel economy, no-idling policies and reengineering our freight network to run fewer miles and use less fuel.

As President Obama noted that day, freight vehicles are thought to be responsible for approximately 20 percent of the GHG related to transportation. He believes that we can increase tractor-trailer fuel economy by as much as 25 percent using technologies that now exist.

This is an achievable goal — if industry and government work together in a true partnership to make it a reality. The outcome will be the first-ever national GHG/fuel efficiency program for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. It’s a goal that has benefits for all — and one that, for the sustainability of our industry and our environment, deserves our full support.

Doug Stotlar is president and chief executive officer of Con-way Inc. He, along with Tommy Hodges, chairman of American Trucking Associations, and other industry executives joined President Obama at a Rose Garden signing ceremony earlier this year that laid the groundwork for new fuel efficiency standards for the trucking industry.

These are challenging times, and our nation is at a crossroads. Our economy is ailing, unemployment is soaring, spending is out of control, and deficits are at record levels. And yet, rather than pursue sound policies that create jobs, the administration remains steadfast in its efforts to push ahead with its job-killing “cap-and-tax” scheme.

Nearly one year ago, the House first embarked on its cap-and-tax experiment. The carbon mandates under the House-passed bill would mean that the United States could not emit more in the year 2050 than we emitted in 1910, requiring us to scale back our emissions to a per capita level equivalent to that of the tiny coastal nation of Belize.

And despite near double-digit unemployment and an electorate growing more restless by the day, the Senate has picked up the administration’s cap-and-tax torch with the recent introduction of the Kerry-Lieberman bill. Study after study has predicted cap-and-tax will result in skyrocketing energy bills and massive job losses, and Kerry-Lieberman puts a bull’s-eye squarely on the backs of working families who are already struggling to keep the lights on.

Last September, with little fanfare, Treasury Department documents came to light that put the administration’s projected annual costs associated with cap-and-tax in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The bombshell documents were initially released in mid-September in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. However, Treasury blacked out vital analysis specifically related to the costs of cap-and-trade. Upon urging Secretary Timothy Geithner to release the documents in their entirety, Treasury finally acquiesced, and it became clear that by the administration’s own calculations, cap-and-trade would have a devastating effect on our economy.

One particular Treasury document states cap-and-trade “will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of tens (and potentially hundreds) of billions of dollars.” Upon examination of the documents, CBS News pegged the annual cost at more than $400 billion a year.

How on earth can our economy absorb such a hit? Especially at a time when the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the president’s fiscal 2011 budget forecasts a record $1.5 trillion deficit for 2010 and $1.8 trillion in tax increases through 2020. By 2020, the debt is predicted to surpass $20 trillion, an alarming 90 percent of the economy. Interest payments on the debt are expected to more than quadruple in the next 10 years, rising from $209 billion this year to $916 billion in 2020.

These long-term figures are of particular significance as the climate debate resumes this summer, as they do not reflect the costs associated with cap-and-trade. We could be in even worse financial shape than the CBO reports suggest.

Unfortunately, it seems that no one is listening to the economic alarm bells, as the administration is still moving forward with a $100 billion handout for developing nations to cut emissions. Where are our priorities?

We cannot allow Kerry-Lieberman to sell out American workers to the international community for a policy that will cost well over $1 trillion and eliminate countless more jobs with negligible, if any, global environmental benefit.

It is not just Beltway analysts or government officials who are forecasting exorbitant costs to families. In my corner of Michigan where the unemployment rate is nearly 15 percent, Consumers Energy conservatively estimates rate increases for families in excess of 38 percent over the next 15 years just to comply with cap-and-tax. Some Michigan manufacturers have also indicated they will cease operating during the daytime and solely operate at night when electric rates are cheaper.

Meaningful climate legislation requires global participation, especially that of India and China. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that if China’s emissions of greenhouse gases keep growing at the pace of the past 30 years, the country will emit more in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history.

Without international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require fewer environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy. Efforts to include the world’s leading emitters — India and China — in the House bill last June were rebuffed.

As the administration has continued to ignore the concerns of working families in the climate debate, House Republicans listened and developed the “all of the above” American Energy Act that would reduce emissions, create jobs and keep energy affordable. A principal component of our legislation calls for the construction of 100 new nuclear reactors over the next 20 years. According to data from Oxford Economics, building 100 new nuclear reactors and an appropriate number of enrichment and reprocessing plants over the next 20 years would create more than 1 million jobs. Nuclear power is not only emissions-free, but renewing our commitment to nuclear would create countless jobs at a time when our nation endures near double-digit unemployment.

We have a unique opportunity and responsibility to both reduce emissions and preserve our economy. The American public is desperate for solutions that will boost economic growth, create jobs and protect the pocketbooks of working families. Jobs must be our top priority, not a national energy tax, and folks will be paying very close attention this summer and in November.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. His commentary on cap and trade legislation first appeared earlier this month in Roll Call magazine.

source: outdoor.com

As concern about global climate change continues to rise, more and more people are talking about shifting freight from trucks to rail. Rail is more efficient, many believe, and it requires less fuel consumption.

“This would really benefit the environment,” they say.

We say, “Not so fast.”

A recent analysis published in Transportation Fundamentals examines the truck vs. rail question and finds some interesting answers. According to author Noël Perry, managing director and senior consultant at FTR Associates, most of the U.S. freight now traveling by truck would actually require more energy consumption if transported rail-only. While rail itself is more fuel efficient, it creates far more of certain emissions than trucks are allowed to under current standards. Clearly the addition of trucks, at least in some stages of the supply chain, allows for the most effective — and greenest — combination of resources.

As Perry writes, “Existing market forces have already done an excellent job of maximizing fuel efficiency by allowing rail and truck to do what they do best.”

What they do best, according to Perry, is intercity long-haul for rail and more local short-haul transportation for trucks. The biggest challenge to combining those strengths is accessibility to intermodal terminals to enable convenient truck-to-rail transloading. The government should, Perry argues, support increased accessibility to those terminals. He also favors modifying truck size and weight standards and lowering rail’s nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions limits to current truck standards. These actions would represent significant steps toward a greener transportation system.

Valid points, all.

There’s also the question of congestion in the nation’s freight system, a problematic issue that could become very serious in the event of a major increase in rail freight. Industry analysts have predicted that adding even 25 percent more freight into the already overburdened rail system would create serious congestion, efficiency and productivity issues. What repercussions could we expect from adding even more freight than that?

When it comes to road congestion, the picture looks no rosier. While many rail proponents push for a modal shift that would remove 10 percent of freight traffic from America’s highways, that remains an unachievable goal. In fact, an American Trucking Associations (ATA) analysis found that doubling the freight tonnage traveling by rail would result in only a roughly 1 percent reduction in trucks on the road by 2018.  To multiply that figure by 10 would require tremendous rail infrastructure investments, which seems highly unlikely — especially given that the last major line-haul route built in the United States was constructed in 1909.

Clearly, there are no quick answers. But with freight tonnage projected to grow 28 percent by 2018 , it’s good that analysts like Noël Perry are asking — and finding answers — to the questions. Let’s keep that conversation going.