POLICY Talks with Canada collapsed over the weekend, and a construction material is on the new duty list. The 50 percent U.S. tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods took effect Aug. 22 after negotiators missed a Friday deadline. The covered list runs to dairy, wine, furniture, clothing, cement, and hockey equipment. Cement is the line that matters for project budgets. Canada answered on Saturday. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will “match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar,” with duties starting Sept. 8 on U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. Rates and the full product list are still to come. The U.S. side had offered to lower duties on aluminum and steel in exchange for wider access to Canadian dairy and lumber markets. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said new demands from Canada “upended the careful balance” the two sides had reached.
Sources: NPR, Aug. 22; Al Jazeera, Aug. 23
ENG MnDOT takes the Highway 169 revitalization to the public on Sept. 2. The drop-in open house runs 4 to 6 p.m. at the Spring Lake Park Warming House in North Mankato, with no formal presentation. The project covers Hwy 169 from Riverfront Drive to just north of the Hwy 169/Hwy 14 interchange and grew out of a 2021 corridor study. The 2027 stage reconstructs the highway from Belgrade Avenue to north of Hwy 14, adds a roundabout at Webster Avenue, closes and realigns Lind Street with a new roundabout at North River Lane, and builds out bicycle and pedestrian facilities, including two pedestrian underpasses and new trail. Traffic detours to Lookout Drive and Hwy 14 during that stage. The 2028 stage handles pavement from Riverfront Drive to Belgrade Avenue and three bridge repairs. Design has run from 2024 through this year.
Sources: MnDOT, Hwy 169 Revitalization; KEYC, Aug. 20
ENG A new MnDOT solicitation puts truck electrification on the study docket. The department posted a Truck Electrification Needs Assessment on Aug. 20 with responses due Sept. 23, open to all consultants. The scope covers market trends for electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks, how those trucks operate in Minnesota today, adoption scenarios for 2030 through 2040, greenhouse gas effects, and how to prioritize charging infrastructure. Three Clear Roads research contracts also sit open with Sept. 29 deadlines, covering winter maintenance data, a friction test method for deicer qualification, a deicing materials cost tool, and a parcel polygon contract due Sept. 8 that is limited to consultants prequalified in right-of-way surveys.
BIZ Construction starts jumped in July, but highway and bridge work went the other way. Dodge Construction Network reported total starts up 25.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.79 trillion. Nonresidential building drove it at 57.7 percent, residential rose 4.9 percent, and within nonbuilding, utility and electric power starts climbed 44.7 percent while highway and bridge starts fell 16.9 percent. Through July, nonresidential is up 21.9 percent for the year and nonbuilding 29.8 percent, with electric power up 94.1 percent, while residential is down 1.7 percent. Eric Gaus, chief economist at Dodge, said there is “strength in pockets, multifamily within residential, data centers within commercial, energy within nonbuilding.”
Source: Construction Dive, Aug. 21
BIZ A ransomware crew says it took project documents along with the payroll data. Turner Construction disclosed a breach that ran July 2 to 15 and was confirmed July 27, exposing Social Security numbers, salaries, dates of birth, direct-deposit bank details, and possibly passport numbers for 6,000 people. The group claiming responsibility, which surfaced Aug. 11, says it also took engineering documents, military project files, contracts, non-disclosure agreements, and material governed by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, 27.2 terabytes in all. Turner brought in outside forensic help and is offering five years of identity protection. It has not commented on the claims about project files.
Source: Construction Dive, Aug. 21
Two ACEC Minnesota dates worth holding - the 2026 M&A Summit on Tuesday, September 16, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-to-mid-career staff, running 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.