POLICY Group membership is no longer a basis for DBE eligibility, but an owner may still describe race or sex discrimination in a personal narrative. A final rule published Sept. 25 and effective the same day completes the Transportation Department’s removal of race- and sex-based presumptions from the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and Airport Concession DBE programs. It confirms the interim final rule of Oct. 3, 2025 and responds to 637 public comments. Congress had directed the department to presume that members of named groups were socially and economically disadvantaged. Every firm, whether applying or already certified, must instead prove disadvantage through an individualized personal narrative under a rewritten 49 CFR 26.67. The interim rule said determinations must be made “without regard to race or sex,” and commenters read that as barring an owner from mentioning race or sex discrimination at all. The department says that was not its intent and has revised the regulatory text. Determinations must now be made “without any presumptions based on race or sex.” An owner may describe race or sex discrimination, and a certifier may weigh it, as individualized evidence of harm the owner actually suffered. The narrative must identify at least one objective basis for the owner’s disadvantaged status, and the rule says that basis “may be any identifiable status or condition.” It must describe that distinguishing feature in enough detail to justify the owner’s conclusion that it caused economic hardship, social barriers, or denied opportunities, and state how and to what extent the harm occurred, to a preponderance of the evidence. The department also replaced the “similarly situated” comparison that firms called impossible to document with a comparison to non-disadvantaged individuals of comparable qualifications, and its own example is two engineers holding the same degree and certified in similar NAICS codes. A certifier may also find an owner not economically disadvantaged in fact even when personal net worth falls below the cap, and the rule places no limitations on the evidence considered, naming assets, income, and access to credit and capital. The deadlines are now fixed. Unified Certification Programs must finish reevaluating their certified firms by Dec. 24, with one three-month extension available on advance request. A firm that has not filed its documentation by March 24, 2027 gets a final written notice and a 90-day grace period before automatic disqualification. A removal under that provision is a disqualification rather than a decertification, so the burden-of-proof and hearing protections of 49 CFR 26.61 and 26.87 do not apply. Firms owned by an Indian Tribe or a Native Hawaiian organization as entities are exempt from both the narrative and the reevaluation. Professional engineers filed 150 comments arguing that sudden change on this scale cascades through project delivery. MnDOT’s professional and technical notices page states that the department will resume setting project-based numerical DBE goals on federally funded projects, and that advertisements will carry either a numerical goal or a DBE-neutral goal. Four of the 27 entries on MnDOT’s potential projects list are flagged for possible DBE goal review. The department has not changed its separate Targeted Group Business program, and says it is assessing legal challenges to similar programs elsewhere before it does. Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy signed the rule.
Sources: 91 FR 60885, Sept. 25; MnDOT professional and technical notices
ENG The Minnesota National Guard is sounding the market for a five-year architect-engineer contract at Saint Paul and Duluth. A sources sought notice posted Sept. 24 says the United States Property and Fiscal Office intends to award one indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract for non-personal architect-engineer services supporting the 133rd Airlift Wing in Saint Paul and the 148th Fighter Wing in Duluth. Responses run to five pages and are due Oct. 8 at 10am. Selection will follow Public Law 92-582 and Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 36, on professional qualifications rather than competitive bidding. The contract carries a five-year ordering period and a ceiling of $20 million, with firm fixed price task orders negotiated project by project. Task orders will typically fall under $1 million and can reach $5 million. The anticipated scope covers master planning and program support, investigative and design services through construction documents, construction support, engineering and environmental studies, National Environmental Policy Act documentation, surveys, cost estimates, quality control and quality assurance plans, construction inspection and testing, engineering standards, value engineering, performance criteria for design-build bridging documents, commissioning, and interior design. Facility types named include aircraft hangars, corrosion control and aircraft maintenance facilities, sensitive compartmented information facilities, vehicle and support equipment maintenance, training sites, communications and electronic maintenance, mobility and aerial port facilities, military airfield pavements, roadways, site utilities, and infrastructure. There is no solicitation yet. Firms are pointed to the conflict-of-interest provisions at FAR 9.5 and FAR 36.201-1(b).
POLICY The Senate is staying in next week and may vote on the data-center ratepayer bill, but permitting has slipped to November. Majority Leader John Thune said Thursday the chamber will likely be in session next week and may consider the Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives 417 to 3 on Sept. 16 and would require state utility commissions to consider standards making large loads above 100 megawatts pay the full incremental cost of the infrastructure built to serve them. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Shelley Moore Capito said the same day that the chamber will probably take it up and that she hopes to “get that across the finish line next week.” Senator Jon Husted sought passage by unanimous consent on Sept. 17 and a Democratic senator objected, blocking it. Senate Democrats call the measure a messaging proposal that lacks mandatory enforcement. Environment and Public Works ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse said Thursday that papering, selling, and voting on a deal will likely push consideration to the lame-duck session in November, and that negotiators are “over the hump on the deal-break issues” with text that “should be finalized within a matter of days, maybe even hours.” He said colleagues seeing the bill for the first time will want a manager’s amendment process. Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich has asked for regular order. Capito says the negotiation is finished, telling reporters “we have a deal, we have a negotiated bill,” and Thune said Republicans and the White House had closed a deal incorporating essentially all of the Democrats’ asks. An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the concessions may not survive until the lame duck. The bill is expected to make major changes to how energy infrastructure is reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act, with judicial review periods and agency deadlines central to the talks. No text has been released and no vote is scheduled. Capito says the ratepayer provisions are already inside the permitting bill.
Sources: Roll Call, Sept. 24; West Virginia MetroNews, Sept. 24; Office of Senator Jon Husted, Sept. 17
FUNDING The Energy Department will put $1.9 billion into reconductoring instead of new corridors. The Office of Electricity announced Sept. 24 that it intends to fund 31 grid-improvement projects across 26 states under the Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades program. Federal money is $1.9 billion against $3.35 billion in recipient cost share, for $5.25 billion in total spending. Sponsors are expected to reconductor or rebuild 1,500 miles of transmission line and deploy grid-enhancing technologies across 21,000 miles, freeing 23 gigawatts of additional capacity. The department says the work will lower electricity costs for 100 million Americans. The program sits inside the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program and was funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Selected utilities include Alabama Power, Duke Energy Carolinas, Eversource Energy, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, and PPL Electric. Two selections target transfer capability between the Eastern and Western interconnections: a $1.2 billion project sponsored by the Colorado Energy Office across Colorado, Texas, and neighboring regions, and an $832 million Three Corners Connection sponsored by the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services to link the Southwest Power Pool in Oklahoma with the Western Electricity Coordinating Council in Colorado. The department also released its Speed to Power request for information analysis. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the investments will get more out of existing infrastructure.
Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, Sept. 24; Utility Dive, Sept. 25
POLICY Federal explosives storage rules were rewritten in four documents on one day. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives published two final rules and two proposed rules amending 27 CFR part 555 on Sept. 25. The final rules take effect Oct. 26. One adds a requirement that anyone storing explosive materials notify the local fire safety authority every 12 months, and again when storage at a site ends, and keep copies of those notices for five years; the notice states the type, magazine capacity, and location of each site. The second closes out two interim final rules implementing the Safe Explosives Act that had been open since 2003, rescinds ATF Ruling 2003-5, clarifies when licensees and permittees must report changes in responsible persons and authorized employees, drops the requirement to verify the identity of a person accepting delivery for a distributee, and amends the transport exemption language. The two proposals carry a Nov. 24 comment deadline. One consolidates magazine safety requirements from four sections into a single section covering safety outside a magazine, safety inside a magazine, and storing requirements, rescinds two sections, and writes in ATF guidance allowing alternative methods of storing explosives in containers. The other revises the exceptions to the locked-magazine requirement, adding a testing exception and a perforating gun exception, extending existing exceptions to material that is imminently to be used or transported, and eliminating the requirement for type 3 magazines.
Sources: 91 FR 60803, Sept. 25; 91 FR 61074; 91 FR 60920; 91 FR 60911
BIZ Architecture billings stayed soft in August, but Midwest firms grew for the first time since 2025. The AIA and Deltek Architecture Billings Index read 47.2 for August, below the 50 that separates growth from decline. Newly signed design contracts kept falling and inquiries grew only modestly. Midwest firms posted modest growth, their first since 2025. Western billings were essentially flat, and Northeast billings fell to their lowest level since 2020. Firms are also getting less confident about what is ahead, with the share expecting billings to decline rising from 21 percent at the end of the first quarter to 29 percent at the end of the third. Architectural services employment added 700 positions in July. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent from July and is up 3.4 percent over the year, with gasoline and energy among the largest contributors. AIA chief economist Richard Branch said firms are caught between stubborn inflation and higher borrowing costs.
Sources: AIA and Deltek Architecture Billings Index, August, via Medical Construction and Design, Sept. 24; Builder and Developer, Sept. 24
POLICY The EPA narrowed what a title V air permit can reach. A final rule published Sept. 25 and effective Oct. 26 codifies the agency’s existing interpretation of which requirements from other Clean Air Act programs count as “applicable requirements” that can be reviewed, modified, or implemented through the title V operating permit program. It narrows the situations in which New Source Review preconstruction permitting requirements get a second look under the agency’s title V oversight authorities, and it states that an owner or operator’s general duty to prevent accidental releases of hazardous substances is not an applicable requirement for title V purposes and is therefore not implemented through title V. The rule amends 40 CFR parts 70 and 71, the state and federal operating permit program regulations, and follows a proposed rule the agency published Jan. 9, 2024. Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0401.
Source: 91 FR 61026, Sept. 25
Preliminary entries for ACEC Minnesota’s 60th annual Engineering Excellence Awards are due Thursday, Oct. 8, with winning projects recognized at the Feb. 18, 2027 gala. Public sales are open for the Minnesota Transportation Conference, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-career staff runs this October and November.
State
MnDOT · friction test method for the Clear Roads qualified products list · due Sept. 29 · RFP
MnDOT · cost analysis of liquid and solid deicing materials · due Sept. 29 · RFP
MnDOT · winter maintenance survey data web tool · due Sept. 29 · RFP
MnDOT · ROC 52 ADA preliminary and final design, Rochester · due Sept. 30 · Notice
State of Minnesota · environmental emergency response, full service (37460) · due Oct. 2 · MNBuys
MnDOT · contaminated materials technical support for state road construction · due Oct. 6 at 2pm · Notice
MnDOT · statewide ports and waterways plan update · due Oct. 8 at 2pm · Notice
State Historic Preservation Office · Minnesota River cultural resources (5126) · due Nov. 9 · MNBuys
State Historic Preservation Office · Roseau River cultural resources (5127) · due Nov. 9 · MNBuys
MnDOT · general engineering consultant preconstruction services master contract · RFP anticipated early October · Advance notice
Regional
Vadnais Lake Area Water Management Organization · general engineering services, 2027 and 2028, on call · due Sept. 30 at 4pm · RFP
Metropolitan Council · ultrasonic rail testing (26P133) · due Oct. 13 · RFP
Metropolitan Council · modernizing existing interchanges, 363 service interchanges (26P230) · due Oct. 14 · RFP
Counties
Washington County · Radio Drive pedestrian management study, CSAH 13 · due Oct. 2 at 3pm · RFP
Dakota County · County Road 50 and Interstate 35 interchange final engineering design · no date posted · Courtesy notice
Cities
City of Lanesboro · public facility energy audit · due Sept. 30 at 4pm · RFP
City of Golden Valley · 2050 comprehensive plan update · due Sept. 30 at 4:30pm · RFP
City of Woodbury · water and sanitary sewer rate study · due Oct. 1 at 5pm · RFP
City of Victoria · public works space needs study · due Oct. 2 at 4pm · RFP
City of Stacy · city engineer and city planner services · due Oct. 2 at 5pm · RFP
City of Medina · 2030-2050 comprehensive plan update · due Oct. 5 at 4pm · RFP
City of Waconia · 2050 comprehensive plan master consultant · due Oct. 9 · RFP
City of Morris · 2050 comprehensive plan update · due Oct. 10 · RFP
City of Hopkins · 2050 comprehensive plan public engagement · due Oct. 16 at 4:30pm · RFP
City of Foley · general municipal engineering services · due Oct. 28 at 4pm · RFP
Federal
Minnesota National Guard · architect-engineer services indefinite delivery contract, Saint Paul and Duluth · due Oct. 8 at 10am · Sources sought
The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading.