POLICY Canada published the schedule. Ottawa released the full list of U.S. goods that face Canadian counter-tariffs beginning Sept. 8, covering $27.6 billion in imports. Rates run at 15, 25, and 50 percent, each set to match the U.S. duty on the same good. Existing counter-tariffs on steel and aluminum double from 25 percent to 50 percent. The schedule reaches structural steel and aluminum products, machinery and lifting equipment, appliances and air conditioning units, pulp and paper, electronics, and agricultural equipment. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the package in Ottawa on Aug. 25 with three other ministers. The U.S. duties that prompted it took effect Aug. 22 on $20 billion of Canadian goods. What is new here is the schedule itself. Until this week the categories were described but the product lines and rates were not public, so exporters and buyers could not price the exposure. They can now, and the higher steel and aluminum rates land on U.S.-made structural product moving north.
Sources: Department of Finance Canada, Aug. 25; Global News, Aug. 25
POLICY Disaster-recovery work just got a shorter environmental path. The Department of Homeland Security adopted 35 categorical exclusions borrowed from other federal agencies, effective Aug. 26. Section 109 of the National Environmental Policy Act, added by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, lets one agency use another agency’s established exclusions instead of writing its own. Fifteen come from the Energy Department and seven from USDA Rural Development, with the rest from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Forest Service, FHWA, the Army, the Navy, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Indian Health Service, FirstNet, NTIA, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The covered activities include streambank bioengineering and native plant stabilization, water wells, corridor development, renewable energy facilities, noise barriers, environmental investigations, and building alterations. DHS names FEMA disaster recovery and hazard mitigation as the intended use. The notice takes effect on publication and carries no comment period.
Source: Federal Register, Aug. 26
ENG A central Minnesota resurfacing job became a two-year project. MnDOT said Aug. 25 that the 10-mile Highway 65 rebuild from Cambridge to north of Braham will not finish this season. Work started in July instead of early spring, and the scope needs a full six-month schedule. Highway 65 closes to through traffic Aug. 31 into late fall for the stretch from Stanchfield to Highway 107 in Braham. The segment north of Braham moves to May through July 2027. The work covers resurfacing, pipe and culvert replacement, guardrail updates, lighting at county road intersections, rumble strips and pavement markings, and storm sewer and sidewalk upgrades in Grandy. Drivers face posted detours and one-way, reduced-speed traffic under flagger control.
Source: MnDOT, Aug. 25
ENG A University of Minnesota team automated the pedestrian-stress map. Researchers at the Accessibility Observatory built software that scores street segments for walking comfort on a four-level scale, from safe for a child to hostile for most people. The scores come from traffic speed, lane count, sidewalk presence, and buffer width, read automatically out of OpenStreetMap. Missing values such as speed limits are estimated from road type. Shirley Shiqin Liu led the work with the Cook County, Illinois, transportation department. The team is refining the program into an open-source release other agencies can run. The next question is whether high-stress streets actually keep people from reaching the destinations they need.
Source: University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, Aug. 24
BIZ Eighteen construction insurance brokers left for a competitor. Willis Towers Watson sued Lockton and 18 former employees on Aug. 24 in Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts. The brokers resigned the morning of Aug. 19, between 8:02 and 8:46, and started at Lockton the same day. Most worked in Boston, with others in Pennsylvania and Alabama. Thomas Grandmaison, chief client officer for construction, was among them. WTW says 13 client accounts followed, worth $5 million in annual revenue, and it wants a restraining order barring Lockton from servicing them. The claims run to breach of employment agreements requiring 15 days’ notice, non-solicitation and non-servicing covenants of 12 to 24 months, breach of fiduciary duty, and tortious interference.
Source: Engineering News-Record, Aug. 26
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The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading.