Business

Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. said Monday it posted a second-quarter loss of $22 million, or 38 cents a share, compared with earning $17.6 million, or 28 cents, a year ago.

Declaring the current system irrevocably “broken,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters unveiled the Bush administration’s final major surface transportation policy initiative — a reform of the highway program that includes unlimited tolling and an increased emphasis on private capital.

American Trucking Associations last week asked a federal court to block emission-reduction plans by the California ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that include concessionaire requirements the group said “unlawfully re-regulated the federally de-regulated trucking industry.”

The U.S. economic stimulus package and inventory replenishment by customers powered a 5.4% rise in truck tonnage during June compared with last year, the eighth consecutive monthly increase, American Trucking Associations said.

The national average retail price of diesel fell 11.5 cents to $4.603 a gallon last week, the largest one-week drop in nearly two years and the second consecutive weekly decline, the Department of Energy reported.

ExxonMobil Corp. broke its own record for the largest quarterly profit posted by a U.S. company, reporting net earnings of $11.7 billion, or $2.22 a share, up from $10.3 billion, or $1.83, a year ago.

Construction spending fell 0.4% in June, the Commerce Department said Friday.

U.S. manufacturing was stagnant in July, as factory orders plunged to the lowest level in almost seven years, the Institute for Supply Management said Friday.