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As humid temperatures stagnate around 90 degrees in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park of Ohio, the CE editors clamor around our single-window AC unit and wait for news to trickle in to our inboxes. But we don’t mind waiting if that means that our contracting and manufacturing readers are hard at work, while we whittle down our dog day afternoons.

Since you were likely sitting in a machine cab and not in front of your computer, here are the stories that have made big headlines on the CE Blog: The Machine Works in the past two weeks. As always, follow us on http://twitter.com/compactequip, leave us a comment or send us an email.

Made in America: Inside the Manufacturing Enhancement Act: President Obama signed the Manufacturing Enhancement Act of 2010 into law yesterday. The new Act aims to create jobs and strengthen manufacturing as a key driver of economic recovery. Here’s how the Manufacturing Enhancement Act works…

Construction Unemployment Falls to 17.3 Percent in July: Despite being in the height of the construction season, the nation’s nonresidential building construction sector shed 1,800 jobs in July, according to the August 6 employment report by the Department of Labor. Since July 2009, 38,700 nonresidential construction jobs, or 5.4 percent, have been lost.

Stimulus Helps Construction Spending Post Small Gain, but Pain Continues for Other Contractors: Total construction spending eked out a small rise in June as gains in stimulus-aided public categories offset decreases in homebuilding and private nonresidential spending, the Associated General Contractors of America said last Friday, in an analysis of new Census Bureau data. Highway and wastewater construction each rose for the fourth consecutive month; other public transportation facilities — transit, rail and airports — jumped 20 percent from a year earlier; and public housing soared 31 percent compared to June 2009.

CGA Says Call Before You Dig – It’s Free and Imperative for Safe Construction: A recent report released by the Common Ground Alliance (CGA), the leading association dedicated to protecting underground utility lines and the safety of the people who dig near them, indicated an underground utility line is damaged during digging projects once every three minutes in the United States. The same report found that 34 percent of underground utility lines are damaged because this free phone call was never made.

Caterpillar to Expand Manufacturing and Increase Employment at New Hydraulic Excavator Facility in Texas: Once it’s fully operational, Caterpillar hopes to employ more than 500 people and triple Caterpillar’s U.S.-based excavator capacity at its new facility in Victoria, Texas. The biggest manufacture of earth moving equipment in the world announced today that it has selected the City of Victoria as the location for the company’s new state-of-the-art hydraulic excavator manufacturing facility.

Utility Vehicle Report Shows Market Progress for the Long Term: Off-roading in a utility vehicle often feels more like fun than work, which is probably why UTVs are often considered more of a recreational machine than a construction-focused mini truck. As a consequence, the industry took a heavy hit in markets like construction and landscaping during the recession, where it often felt like a luxury. But that market’s changing…