Journal
Journal 14 Commercial Carrier Journal August 2008 n U.S. House of Representatives passed by a 387 to 37 vote legislation (H.R. 6532) to restore $8 billion to the highway trust fund that was taken from the fund in 1998. A sharp reduc-tion in driving due to high gasoline prices is expected to create a shortfall in trust fund revenues by as much as $14 billion in the coming year. n Federal Highway Administration will allocate $11 million for intelligent transportation initiatives along I-95 and I-5 to help truckers find available parking efficiently. The Truck Parking Facilities program will involve the monitoring of parking availability and the transmission of that information to truckers, who potentially could reserve spaces in advance. n Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said a strike force investigation of moving companies resulted in 1,140 violations of fed-eral consumer protection and safety regulations and nearly $325,000 in assessed fines. The effort targeted states receiving the most complaints in a consumer complaint database. n American Trucking Associations' advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased on a month-to-month basis for the first time since January of this year, edging 0.5 percent higher in May. The May tonnage index of 114.8 was 3.3 percent higher compared with May 2007, marking the seventh con-secutive year-over-year increase. n Freight Transportation Services Index rose 1.9 percent in May from its April level, the largest monthly increase since January, the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported. in brief I n what federal agencies con-cede is a pre-liminary assessment, the Interagency Task Force on Commodity Markets (ITF) last month released a staff report con-cluding that funda-mental supply and demand factors pro-vide the best expla-nation for the recent escala-tion of crude oil prices. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) formed the task force in June to evaluate developments in commodity markets, particular investor practices and fundamental supply and demand factors. The task force said its preliminary assessment is that current oil prices and the increase in oil prices between January 2003 and June 2008 are due largely to fun-damental supply and demand factors. During this same period, activity on the crude oil futures market as measured by the number of contracts outstanding, trading activity, and the number of traders has increased significantly, the ITF report states. While these increases broadly coincided with the run-up in crude oil prices, the Task Force's preliminary analysis to date does not support the prop-osition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices. Strong economic growth worldwide, especially in emerging market coun-tries, has increased the demand for oil substantially in the last five years, while the production of oil has responded sluggishly and has been compounded by production shortfalls associated with political unrest in countries with large oil reserves, the ITF report states. If a group of market participants has systemati-cally driven prices, detailed daily position data should show that that group's position changes preceded price changes, the task force said. The evidence available to date, however, suggests that changes in futures mar-ket participation by speculators have not systematically preceded price changes, the ITF said. On the contrary, most speculative traders typically alter their posi-tions following price changes, suggesting that they are responding to new infor-mation just as one would expect in an efficiently operating market. The ITF which is composed of staff members from CFTC; the depart-ments of Agriculture, Energy and the Treasury; the Board of Governors of the Feds blame oil surge on supply and demand Bush administration pushes for offshore drilling President Bush lifted an executive moratorium on oil and gas exploration of the Outer Continental Shelf, but the move has no practical effect absent congressional action.