ATA launches industry-wide environmental sustainability program

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Trucking Associations (ATA) has launched the first-ever industry-wide environmental sustainability program. Titled “Trucks Deliver a Cleaner Tomorrow,” the program identifies a series of initiatives that will help reduce fuel consumption and combat the challenge of global climate change through innovative ways to reduce CO2 emissions.

ATA president and CEO Bill Graves praised the program as a landmark effort that will join all trucking industry stakeholders to work together on these issues.

“ATA has committed itself to a series of measures that can reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and CO2 emissions by 900 million tonnes for all vehicles over the next 10 years,” Graves said. “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 diesel prices 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. They are the equivalent of eliminating the CO2 generated by 9.6 million Americans for one year roughly equal to the population of the Chicago metropolitan area. The recommendations are displayed on a new Web site, www.trucksdeliver.org, together with full details of the trucking industry’s new commitments on sustainability, which include:

– setting 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;
– reducing engine idling;
– increasing fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the US EPA SmartWaySM
Transport Partnership Program;
– reducing congestion by improving highways, if necessary by raising the fuels tax;
– using more productive truck combinations; and
– supporting 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 US 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,” Hodges said. “As the challenge of global climate change has emerged, we have the added impetus to make progress on those innovations.”

The ATA member companies represented on the Sustainability Task Force are:
Air Products & Chem. Inc. Allentown, Pa.
Arkansas Best Corp. Fort Smith, Ark.
Caterpillar Inc. Peoria, Ill.
Combined Transport Inc. Central Point, Ore.
Con-way Inc. Ann Arbor, Mich.
Cummins Inc. Columbus, Ind.
Detroit Diesel Detroit, Mich.
Engine Manufacturers Association Chicago, Ill.
FedEx Freight Memphis, Tenn.
Freightliner LLC Portland, Ore.
Grammer Industries Inc. Grammer, Ind.
International Truck & Engine Corp. Fort Wayne, Ind.
Maverick Transportation LLC Little Rock, Ark.
Minnesota Trucking Association Roseville, Minn.
O & S Trucking Inc. Springfield, Mo.
Petroleum Transport Inc. Belle, W.Va.
Schneider National Inc. Green Bay, Wis.
Swift Transportation Co. Inc. Phoenix, Ariz.
Titan Transfer Inc. Shelbyville, Tenn.
UPS Freight Richmond, Va.
US Xpress Enterprises, Inc. Chattanooga, Tenn.
Volvo Trucks N.A. Greensboro, N.C.
Wabash National Corp. Lafayette, Ind.
Wal-Mart Transportation LLC Bentonville, Ark.
Waste Management Inc. Washington, D.C.
Watkins and Shepard Trucking Helena, Mont.
YRC Worldwide Inc. Overland Park, Kan.

For more information on the Sustainability Program visit www.trucksdeliver.org.

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