US truck industry in for dramatic green push

Ann Arbor, Michigan

INSIDE the National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory here, a mammoth contraption, with steel rollers, advanced electronics and exhaust tubes, is nearing completion.

The project - an enormous "truck treadmill" - is the new centrepiece of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) complex. One of the largest vehicle testing centres in the world, the truck lab will play a crucial role in shaping and enforcing a major new environmental mandate by the Obama administration that could dramatically transform America's trucking industry.