The (Almost) Daily Brief

Executive Order Moves to Defer Diesel Fuel Taxes Through Dec. 31

By Megan Dayton · 10/9/2026

FUNDING  Applications for the final round of the federal wildlife crossings program close Nov. 16. The Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty opened the fiscal 2026 Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program on Sept. 30 under funding opportunity number FHWA-WCPP-26-002, assistance listing 20.290. The notice carries $80 million in fiscal 2026 funds plus any unobligated funding from previous fiscal years, awarded as cost-reimbursable grants, with no minimum and no maximum award. Applications close Monday, Nov. 16 at 11:59pm eastern and awards are anticipated in March 2027. A 20 percent non-Federal cost share is mandatory, and an application without it is classified as ineligible; Federal Land Management Agencies and Tribes may use other federal funds as match under 23 U.S.C. 120(k). A minimum of 60 percent of each fiscal year’s funds must go to rural areas under 23 U.S.C. 171(g). Construction and non-construction projects are both eligible, and DOT says it may prioritize construction. The notice replaces the one published June 6, 2024, rescinds the multi-year notice, and opens the final application period for fiscal 2026 funds. The application template moves from optional to mandatory and the evaluation criteria were updated. The infrastructure law appropriated $350 million in Federal-aid contract authority for fiscal 2022 through 2026, the fiscal 2026 funds must be obligated by Sept. 30, 2029, and the period of performance runs one to four years. Eligible applicants include state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, units of local government, regional transportation authorities, special purpose districts with a transportation function, Tribes, and Federal Land Management Agencies. MnDOT State Aid’s page for the program reads “Closed, watch for upcoming opportunities.” No Minnesota project appears among the 19 selections across 17 states, totaling $109.6 million, that the Federal Highway Administration lists for fiscal 2022 and 2023.

Sources: FHWA notice of funding opportunity FHWA-WCPP-26-002; MnDOT State Aid, Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program; FHWA Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program grant selections

POLICY  Minnesota regulators will decide Oct. 22 whether to send Xcel Energy’s Google service agreement to a contested case. The Public Utilities Commission’s Oct. 22 agenda lists dockets E002/M-26-170 and E002/M-26-171, Xcel Energy’s petition for approval of an electric service agreement between Google and Xcel, and the companion matter covering highly confidential and highly trade secret documents relating to that petition. Both carry two stars, the commission’s marker for a disputed item with legal, procedural, or policy issues to resolve. The question before the commission is what action to take on a Sept. 25 motion by Xcel Large Industrials to refer the matter to the Court of Administrative Hearings for contested case treatment, and to compel Xcel to remove references and redactions to highly confidential trade secret information. Contested case treatment would move the record into an evidentiary proceeding before an administrative law judge. The meeting begins at 10am.

Source: Minnesota PUC, Oct. 22 agenda meeting

ENG  A solar project rated to 180 megawatts in Olmsted County goes to the Public Utilities Commission for a site permit on Oct. 22. Docket IP7156/GS-25-126 is Lemon Hill Solar, LLC’s application for a site permit for the Lemon Hill Solar Project. The commission will decide whether to adopt the administrative law judge’s findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations, whether the environmental assessment and the record created at the public hearings address the issues identified in the scoping decision, whether to grant the permit, and what additional conditions or requirements to include if it does. The item carries two stars. The meeting begins at 10am.

Source: Minnesota PUC, Oct. 22 agenda meeting

POLICY  A federal judge has ordered an architecture firm to pay $3.3 million over a missing layer of rebar. Judge John Antoon II ruled on Sept. 30, after a four-day non-jury trial in March, that HKS Architects owes Orlando Health $3.3 million for design defects on a six-story, 150-bed hospital in Lake Mary, Florida, that opened last year. The 48-page decision found the defective plans responsible, and not work by the construction manager, Brasfield & Gorrie. The first problem was a lack of sufficient top-mat rebar in part of a 12-inch-deep second-floor concrete slab, found in 2022. The next year brought problems with a cantilevered area of one tower, floor slab deflections, and undersized beams in sections of another. Orlando Health engaged Walter P Moore & Associates as a consultant, and the project team hydro-blasted several inches off the top of the slab so rebar could be added before the top of the mat slab was re-poured. Orlando Health hired HKS in 2019 and the architect’s fee stood at $13.7 million in 2022. The hospital sued in 2024, HKS in turn sued the structural engineer it had hired, the two cases were separated for trial, and the claim against the engineer is pending. That engineer argued in a pretrial motion for partial summary judgment that its structural design was never built.

Informational, not legal advice.

Source: Engineering News-Record, Oct. 8

BIZ  Nonresidential construction planning rose 2.4 percent in September on institutional work. The Dodge Momentum Index, which tracks nonresidential projects entering planning, rose 2.4 percent month over month in September and sits 3.7 percent above its September 2025 level, Dodge Construction Network reported Oct. 7. Institutional planning jumped 9.4 percent on the month and 17.2 percent on the year, carried by education, healthcare, and government building work. Commercial planning fell 1.3 percent on the month, with gains in retail, hotel, office building, and parking garage projects offset by weaker data center and warehouse activity. Without data center work, commercial planning would have fallen 14.9 percent year over year instead of 3 percent. Forty-five projects valued at $100 million or more entered planning during the month. The largest commercial project was the $480 million Project North data center in Jermyn, Pennsylvania. The largest institutional projects were a $346 million Duke Raleigh Hospital addition in Raleigh, North Carolina, the $325 million Spartanburg Regional Heart and Vascular Hospital in South Carolina, and a $319 million WakeMed Hospital in Wendell, North Carolina. Sarah Martin, Dodge’s director of economic research, said institutional planning led the month’s growth.

Source: Construction Dive, Oct. 8

POLICY  An Ohio cost-benefit analysis scores a ban on new data center construction above the status quo. Scioto Analysis, a Columbus firm, ran 10,000 simulations across five scenarios for 2027 through 2034 and scored each on a benefit-cost ratio. Holding to the status quo scored 1.04. Requiring a data center to generate its own power at 90 percent renewable and 10 percent gas scored 2.9, a ban on new construction 2.7, a 50-50 split 2.5, and 90 percent natural gas 2.2. The report says a ban produces a higher net present value and benefit-cost ratio than the status quo because most employment benefits from existing data centers remain while the cost of higher electricity prices to ratepayers falls. Ohio has the fourth-most data centers of any state, behind Virginia, Texas, and California, and has provided $2.3 billion in subsidies through tax breaks. The study credits data center development with 96,000 new jobs and $62 billion in social benefits to Ohio since 2013. If every planned project comes online by 2028, the number of Ohio data centers will increase by half and their annual energy draw and annual carbon emissions will each more than triple. Ohio data centers now draw enough electricity to power 5.7 million homes against the 5.4 million homes in the state, and the study projects 3.5 times as many homes by 2028. It puts 87 percent of current U.S. data centers in urban areas and 67 percent of planned ones in rural areas, and expects Midwest data centers to grow 64 percent, the highest rate of any region. The analysis says its results depend heavily on its employment assumptions, and that a ban or a 90 percent renewables requirement could carry a negative net present value if it overestimates how much data centers raise employment and earnings.

Source: Ohio Capital Journal via Route Fifty, Oct. 8

ENG  Minneapolis dug 280 water main access holes in late May and early June, and 93 were still open on Sept. 30. The city is cleaning and lining 17 miles of unlined cast iron water main across 16 neighborhoods this year under a $5.7 million contract held by BLD Services, a Louisiana company. The open holes sit in Columbia Park, Prospect Park, and the Longfellow, Cooper and Howe areas. The city’s own cleaning and lining FAQ, last updated in 2018, puts its usual pace at 7 miles per year, its access-hole spacing at 600 to 750 feet, and a typical project at one to three months. That document sets out two liner choices: cement mortar sprayed inside mains that are structurally sound but corroded and tuberculated, and a resin-saturated structural liner cured with heat to form a free-standing pipe inside the old one, with service taps drilled robotically, where the main is not structurally sound. Columbia Park is being lined with epoxy rather than cement mortar because it has curved streets and sits near the northern city limits, where dead-end mains carry little to no flow. City spokesperson Allen Henry said epoxy lining requires a specialized contractor, more planning and oversight, and less scheduling flexibility, which caused a six-week pause. Project manager Chris Larson took questions at the Columbia Park Neighborhood Association meeting in the spring, and the city says it sent notice letters in late April. Residents say they waited months without word and that the concrete barriers and orange mesh around the holes leave gaps and sag. Henry said water carried in surface hoses warms and loses its ability to hold dissolved gases, which makes it bubble and run cloudy from the tap while staying safe to drink. Backfilling is scheduled for later this month, followed by disinfection, testing, removal of the temporary system, and street restoration. The city puts the citywide program on track to finish in early November.

Sources: City of Minneapolis, Water Mains Cleaning and Lining FAQ; Minnesota Star Tribune, Oct. 9

ENG  A hearing on the Rapidan Dam removal review drew residents’ objections to the project and to the bridge beside it. The Blue Earth County planning commission took public comment on the recently released environmental assessment worksheet for the dam removal and on whether the project needs an environmental impact statement. Property and Land Supervisor John Considine described the worksheet as the document that evaluates whether a project may cause significant environmental impacts and therefore requires the more intensive review. Residents turned instead to the project as a whole and to the replacement of the adjoining county bridge. One asked whether the dam sits on the state or National Register of Historic Places, which the commission could not answer; The Free Press confirmed it appears on neither. Another asked why the bridge had to come down. Considine said that question was “outside of the scope” of the hearing and that he believed the pilings were damaged beyond repair. The resident said the bridge could have been fixed easily and never moved half an inch during the high water. County Commissioner Kip Bruender said a lot of technical decision making went into removing the bridge and offered to connect residents with the county engineer, adding that the board “is not versed enough on that to even touch it.” The resident replied that board members were relying on information from people in Saint Paul. The comment period on the worksheet runs through Oct. 29.

Source: Mankato Free Press, Oct. 8

ENG  MnDOT is taking comment on a Highway 210 corridor study between Fergus Falls and Hewitt. The study covers Highway 210 from Interstate 94 in Fergus Falls to U.S. Highway 71 in Hewitt and looks for long-term opportunities to improve safety, mobility, and connectivity along the corridor. MnDOT will hold a public open house Thursday, Oct. 29 from 4pm to 6:30pm at Battle Lake City Hall, 108 Main Street East. An online survey and an interactive map are also open.

Source: MnDOT news release, Oct. 8

POLICY  A Minnesota cooperative wants a separate rate for members contracting 50 megawatts or more. Dakota Electric Association’s petition to establish a Very Large Member Contract Rate Service goes to the Public Utilities Commission on Oct. 22 as a three-star item, the commission’s marker for a complex or lengthy disputed matter. Docket E111/M-26-243 puts ten questions before the commission. They include whether to accept the 50-megawatt contracted-capacity threshold or an alternative, whether to approve the proposed minimum term lengths, exit fees, financial assurances, and capacity reduction fees, whether to establish a separate rate class for cost isolation and class cost-of-service studies, whether to require tri-party service agreements so wholesale costs can be tracked and directly assigned, and whether very large members should receive credits for grid benefits they provide directly through onsite battery energy storage or other load-management assets. The commission will also take up an Xcel Energy tariff filing on the Distribution System Reactive Upgrade Process standards, docket E002,015,017/CI-24-288, which governs how distribution system costs are shared for interconnection in constrained areas.

Source: Minnesota PUC, Oct. 22 agenda meeting

The (Almost) Daily Brief publishes most weekdays: policy, funding, workforce, and industry news for Minnesota’s engineering firms, in a few minutes of reading. 

Browse past editions or subscribe →