WORKFORCE A proposed federal rule would put a $103,265 fee on every H-1B cap-subject petition. The Department of Homeland Security published the proposal Aug. 25 (91 FR 54817, RIN 1615-AD20, docket USCIS-2026-0298). The fee would be payable by the petitioning employer at the time of filing, covering the regular cap and the advanced-degree master’s cap alike. As written, it sits on top of every other applicable fee or payment. Cap-exempt filings, including those by universities and affiliated nonprofit research institutions, fall outside it. DHS ties the figure to recovering the interagency cost of administering the immigration system, citing $3.0 billion at USCIS, $2.96 billion at the immigration courts, $1.05 billion at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $372 million at the State Department, and $76.2 million at Customs and Border Protection. An earlier $100,000 payment aimed at certain H-1B workers entering from abroad was blocked in litigation. This proposal is broader and reaches every cap-subject petition regardless of where the worker sits. Comments are due Sept. 24.
Sources: Federal Register, Aug. 25; Erickson Immigration Group, Aug. 24
ENG A 20-megawatt data center proposed for the former Star Tribune printing plant is landing in the middle of an unfinished Minneapolis zoning rewrite. Legacy Investing, a Virginia firm, is under contract to buy the 13-acre North Loop site and the 600,000-square-foot plant, vacant since the paper stopped printing there last year. Residents packed the North Loop Neighborhood Association’s planning and zoning committee on Saturday to press the developer on the power draw, water use, noise, and the quality of the jobs, arguing that the construction work is transient. Legacy’s vice president of development, Ari Chernikoff, and co-founder Daniel English took the questions. The association’s full board meets Wednesday at 6 p.m. to decide whether to back a committee letter seeking more information and asking the city to hold the permit for a month. The City Council is separately rewriting the zoning code for data centers, and the draft would bar buildings put up solely to house one and require energy and water use projections with the application along with a conditional use permit. A public hearing is targeted for mid-October and a council vote for November. A five-month moratorium covering downtown data centers larger than 350,000 square feet is running in the meantime.
Sources: MPR News, Aug. 23; CBS Minnesota, Aug. 21
BIZ Another $15 million is heading into downtown Saint Paul. The Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation said Tuesday it will invest up to $15 million in downtown redevelopment, working with the Saint Paul Downtown Development Corp., which the Saint Paul Downtown Alliance launched last year. The money moves through direct property investments out of the foundation’s Momentum Minnesota and multiasset endowment portfolios, and investments into the corporation’s Saint Paul Downtown Investment Fund out of its Future Ready portfolio. That fund has already acquired the Alliance Bank Center, the U.S. Bank Center, the Empire Building, and Endicott Arcade Building. Securian Financial Group and the Bush Foundation together supplied $30 million as lead investors in it. The foundation is raising $100 million across the two portfolios and will take seats with the Downtown Alliance and the committee that directs its investment decisions. Chief Investment Officer Shannon O’Leary put the case in terms of blocks going dark and residents routing around them.
ENG Minnesota’s oldest roadway truss is back over water. Crews lowered the Kern Bridge into place Monday morning between Sibley Park and Land of Memories Park in Mankato, spanning the Blue Earth River. The 189-foot wrought-iron bowstring arch through truss was built in 1873 by John Mahowald and the Wrought Iron Bridge Company and carried traffic at the southeast corner of South Bend Township in Blue Earth County until deterioration forced its removal. It was dismantled and put in storage in the winter of 2020. MnDOT’s historic-bridge inventory lists it as the only bowstring through truss in the state and cites its span length as exceptional. It returns as a pedestrian and bicycle crossing tied into the Minnesota River Trail. Finish work remains, with an opening set for this fall.
Sources: MnDOT Historic Bridges, Bridge L5669; KEYC, Aug. 24; FOX 9, Aug. 24
FUNDING How you describe a transportation tax changes who will vote for it. Karen E. Philbrick, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute, drew on the institute’s 16-year national transportation funding survey in a column republished Aug. 6. Asked about raising the federal gas tax to fund “transportation,” 38 percent of respondents supported it. Asked about a 10-cent increase dedicated to maintaining roads and other infrastructure, 75 percent supported it, and 72 percent supported it when the money was dedicated to safety. Only 3 percent knew the federal rate has not changed since 1993. At 18.4 cents a gallon it would need to be 42 cents to hold the purchasing power it had then. Philbrick’s reading is that support turns on whether people can see and trust what the money buys.
Source: The Washington Post, Aug. 6, republished from San José Spotlight
BIZ A new map shows where Minnesota’s charging build-out has gone and where it has not. A Center for Transportation Studies report released Aug. 25, led by Camila Fonseca-Sarmiento of the Humphrey School, tracks the state from 5 charging stations and 12 ports in 2011 to past 1,000 stations and 3,000 ports by 2025. The seven-county metro plus Chisago County holds 668 stations, 61 percent of the state total. Hennepin County alone has 339, Ramsey 176, Dakota 70. Outside the metro the counts thin fast. Rochester has 73, Duluth 39, Mankato 28, Saint Cloud 16, and 17 counties have none at all. Federal NEVI formula money and Volkswagen settlement funds drove most of the build-out. Red Lake, Leech Lake, and White Earth have added community stations. The research team put usability next on its list, meaning whether the chargers work and whether drivers can actually pay at them.
Source: University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, Aug. 25
POLICY Comments close Thursday on a tariff expansion that reaches jobsite equipment and building systems. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is taking comment through Aug. 27 on adding 14 derivative articles to the Section 232 steel, aluminum, and copper duties, docket 260803-0182. The proposed list runs well past raw metal, and most of it lands on construction inputs. Electric conductor cable, welding machine parts, heat exchange unit parts, hydraulic engine and motor parts, aluminum powder, fire extinguishers, and floor safes would carry 25 percent. Tanker and other trailers would carry 25 percent and agricultural trailers 15 percent. Filled steel gas containers for propane, oxygen, and propylene would carry 50 percent on the metal-container value. Self-propelled cranes, mobile lifting frames, and straddle carriers would take the rates set in Proclamation 11032. The authority runs from Proclamation 11021 of April 2, which let Commerce and the Trade Representative add articles to the existing tariffs.
Two ACEC Minnesota programs are open for registration: the 2026 M&A Summit on Tuesday, September 16, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-to-mid-career staff, which runs this October and November.
The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading.