Construction Equipment

Robert Anderson, 70, wandered the huge auction yard in Perris, inspecting his fleet of excavators, backhoes and other heavy construction machines, including the first crane he ever owned. For four decades, he ran Desert Pipeline Inc. out of Thermal, near Palm Springs, building sewers and storm drains for new housing projects. But when the housing bubble burst, Anderson went from a backlog of contracts to no job orders at all.

California's diesel-powered bulldozers, scrapers and other heavy construction equipment must be retrofitted or replaced over the next 13 years to reduce the air pollution that sickens tens of thousands of residents every year, state regulators decided Thursday. Under tough new rules adopted by the Air Resources Board, California is the first state to make construction companies fix existing diesel-powered machines.

Doosan Infracore Co., South Korea's largest maker of construction machinery, agreed Monday to buy Ingersoll-Rand Co.'s Bobcat and other earth-moving equipment units for $4.9 billion in the country's biggest overseas acquisition. The combined businesses, which make small loaders, excavators and forklifts, had about $2.6 billion in sales last year, Incheon-based Doosan Infracore said. Doosan Infracore will pay 1.9 times sales, compared with a value of 1.2 times for Caterpillar Inc.

This Labor Day holiday, while Californians gobble hamburgers and hot dogs in a farewell to summer, thieves who prey on housing job sites will be fattening up on Deere and Caterpillars -- as in John Deere front-loaders, Caterpillar backhoes and an emporium's worth of other pricey machinery and materials theirs for the swiping. Theft has become a chronic, multibillion-dollar drag on the U.S.

The effects of air pollution from construction equipment in California are "staggering," according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The environmental group concluded that at least 1,100 premature deaths and half a million work and school absences in 2005 were caused by people breathing emissions from older tractors, bulldozers and other diesel equipment -- at an estimated public health cost of $9.1 billion.

Los Angeles officials on Friday banned tall retaining walls that dot the city's canyon communities from Woodland Hills to Mount Washington, with critics calling the massive bulkheads "the hillside strangler." City Council members said the oversized concrete walls that loom over neighboring homes are wrecking the rustic feel of the city's canyons and hillsides.

Losses from construction site theft amount to billions of dollars every year and involve home building, commercial construction and public-works programs. The pilfered wares include building materials such as steel, lumber, insulation and siding, newly installed home appliances, tools and heavy equipment.

Targeting a Caterpillar Inc. shareholder resolution set for a vote today, many California Jewish leaders are intensely mobilizing against efforts to use stock market pressure as a tool against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. California Jews representing such organizations as the American Jewish Congress and StandWithUs plan to attend a meeting at Caterpillar Inc.'s corporate headquarters in Peoria, Ill.

Shareholders of Caterpillar Inc. have rejected a proposal that the company review its sale of bulldozers used to demolish houses and other property by Israel. The proposal was rejected by parties holding 97% of the company's shares, the firm announced at the heavy-equipment manufacturer's annual meeting in Chicago.

Steve Walker was ready to sell four 200-ton dump trucks, with price tags as high as $3 million, when the orders were canceled. The buyer, a coal company planning to open a new mine site, was ready to buy. It just couldn't find the 12-foot-tall tires to get the trucks rolling. The mammoth tires, which can cost as much as $30,000 apiece, are in short supply worldwide, leaving earth-moving industries, including coal, in a lurch.