The American Trucking Associations Thursday launched a program of initiatives to set the trucking industry on the road toward a more sustainable future, under the banner, "Trucks Deliver a Cleaner Tomorrow."


This industry-wide environmental sustainability program identifies a series of initiatives that will reduce fuel consumption and combat the challenge of global climate change through innovative ways to reduce CO2 emissions -- and save on fuel costs.

"ATA has committed itself to a series of measures that can reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and CO2 emissions by 900 million tons for all vehicles over the next 10 years," said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. "Our proposals are practical, reasonable, and doable. They make environmental sense, and they make common sense."

"The program is a continuation of environmental advances made by the trucking industry over the last quarter century," Graves added. "But there\'s no doubt that today\'s skyrocketing dieselprices give us an added incentive to roll it out across the industry, and for Congress to provide the support the program needs."

The report includes six key recommendations to reduce fuel consumption and addresses the impact of these activities on the environment. The recommendations are displayed on a new Web site, www.trucksdeliver.org:

• Set governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 68 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles.
• Reduce engine idling.
• Increase fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the U.S. EPA SmartWay Transport Partnership Program.
• Reduce congestion by improving highways, if necessary by raising the fuels tax.
• Use more productive truck combinations.
• Support national fuel economy standards for trucks.

Graves was joined at the launch of the new sustainability program by Margo Oge, director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the CEOs and key executives of many of the nation\'s leading freight and trucking companies, including Fedex Freight, UPS, Schneider National, Titan Transfer, and Con-way.

The report was developed by the ATA Sustainability Task Force, headed by Tommy Hodges, ATA vice chairman and chairman of Titan Transfer.

"This report represents a culmination of many years of ground-breaking efforts on the part of the trucking industry to integrate the most effective diesel consumption reduction techniques into their business models and to transport goods to their destination in the most efficient way we can for us and for our customers," said Hodges. "As the challenge of global climate change has emerged, we have the added impetus to make progress on those innovations."

For more information on the Sustainability Program visit: