The (Almost) Daily Brief

Mesabi Metallics Blasts First Ore and Plans a $5 Billion Iron Plant

By Megan Dayton · 9/24/2026

POLICY  FHWA wants one application process for the three programs states use to test alternatives to federal highway rules. A notice published Sept. 24 proposes replacing the separate application paths for Special Experimental Project 16, Special Experimental Project 15, and Test and Evaluation Project 045 with a uniform two-step process. Comments close Oct. 26. A SEP-16 proposal now takes four steps. A state files a letter of interest, a concept paper, and a detailed proposal, and executes a memorandum of understanding if the experiment is accepted. A SEP-15 proposal takes three steps. TE-045 takes one. Under the proposal every experiment would start with a letter of interest of no more than two pages, naming the program, the section of Title 23 or the regulation or policy to be tested, the controls the state has in place, the proposed duration, and the anticipated cost or time savings. An accepted letter moves to a work plan written with the FHWA division office, carrying performance measures, evaluation criteria, a duration, a transition plan back to normal procedure, and reporting milestones. SEP-16 tests deviations from Title 23 statute, regulation, and policy, including delegating federal program and project responsibilities to states, and cannot be used for anything a statute expressly prohibits. SEP-15 covers contracting, compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, right-of-way acquisition, and project finance. TE-045 develops innovative financing. Only a state department of transportation may submit a proposal, though it may partner with local agencies and other transportation entities. Docket FHWA-2026-0628.

Source: Federal Register, Sept. 24

ENG  MnDOT put a new Robert Street contract on its potential projects list and re-verified a dozen more Metro District entries. The department stamped the list Sept. 23. The new entry is a communications and engagement contract for the Robert Street reconstruction and viaduct replacement in Saint Paul, state project 6217-50. A letter of interest is anticipated this fall, execution is targeted for November, and the term runs December 2026 through November 2031. The engineering work on the same project is already queued. A construction administration team of a project engineer, a chief inspector, and two grading inspectors goes out this fall, against a March 2027 letting and $24 million of construction in 2027 and 2028. MnDOT is rebuilding the corridor between Bernard Street and Kellogg Boulevard in segments, with utility work this year, road construction in 2027 and 2028, and viaduct construction in 2029 pending funding. Four other Metro District solicitations carry fall announcement windows. Preliminary design and alternatives analysis on the Trunk Highway 52 Lafayette Bridge covers environmental documentation, an interstate access modification request, traffic analysis, and water resource engineering. The environmental impact statement contract for Rethinking Interstate 94 runs the 7.5 miles from Highway 55 in Minneapolis to Marion Street in Saint Paul. Metro Construction wants six consultant inspectors for the 2027 season. District project management is scoping Highway 61 in Forest Lake. Two studies are paused, on Highway 95 in southern Washington County and on Highway 55 between Golden Valley and Medina. Outside the metro, District 1 draws letters of interest in October or November on final design for 16 miles of Highway 61 from County State Aid Highway 14 to Reservation Bay Road, including deck work on the Flute Reed River and Brule River bridges.

Sources: MnDOT, potential projects list, Sept. 23; MnDOT, Highway 3 and Robert Street project

POLICY  Federal regulators refused to referee a contract fight over a 1.8-gigawatt data center and left it to the courts. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Sept. 22 rejected Commonwealth Edison’s notice of cancellation of a transmission security agreement covering a $20 billion data center PowerHouse Hillwood is developing in Joliet, Illinois. The dispute turns on credit support. PowerHouse Hillwood says it satisfied the agreement’s initial credit requirement with a $1 posting. The case is already pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and the commission declined to assert primary jurisdiction over what it called ambiguous contract terms. Chairman Laura Swett and Commissioner Lindsay See filed a concurrence pointing at the large-load interconnection show cause orders the commission issued in June to regional transmission organizations and independent system operators. Those grid operators, MISO among them, must respond by mid-November. The concurrence argues for clear and consistent terms for connecting large loads and for standard cost recovery agreements.

Source: Utility Dive, Sept. 23

ENG  Mortenson credits mass timber with $2 million in savings on a university building, and most of it came from deleting a basement. A case study the Minneapolis-based contractor published on the $55 million Kaiser Borsari Hall at Western Washington University attributes the savings to moving the four-story building’s electrical room from the basement to the first floor. The lighter mass timber structure let the team drop the basement foundation and cut concrete. Prefabricated components and early building information modeling coordination shortened the project timeline 25 percent, and the timber installation itself ran two months faster than planned. Other savings came from switching to a variable refrigerant flow HVAC system and rerouting the sewer. The timber needs no welded connections and arrived in fewer truckloads, cutting jobsite labor and deliveries. The components came from a British Columbia supplier within 600 miles of the site. A Mortenson project manager who worked on the job said climate and delivery timing decide whether the material fits a project at all. Perkins+Will was the architect and Tiger Construction installed the timber. The hall opened in early 2025 and has since earned Zero Carbon and Zero Energy certifications after a 12-month performance audit.

Source: Construction Dive, Sept. 23

POLICY  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened a wholesale rewrite of its reactor licensing rules. A proposed rule published Sept. 24 revises reactor licensing, decommissioning, and operational oversight under Executive Order 14300, which directed the commission’s reform. The package reaches risk-informed seismic design, environmental reviews of early site permits, standard design approvals, decommissioning licensing, financial qualifications and decommissioning trust fund use, probabilistic risk assessment requirements, backfitting and issue finality, and operator licensing programs. It amends 10 CFR parts 20, 21, 50, 52, 53, 55, 70, and 72, and comes with draft regulatory guides. The commission’s draft regulatory analysis puts the net averted cost to the industry and to the agency at $22.2 million per year at a 7 percent discount rate and $15.1 million per year at 3 percent. Comments close Nov. 9 at 11:59pm eastern. Docket NRC-2025-1138.

Source: Federal Register, Sept. 24

POLICY  Commerce set weekly import caps on polysilicon and solar cells to stop stockpiling ahead of December tariffs. A temporary final rule effective Sept. 22 sets out how the Bureau of Industry and Security will police stockpiling before the import adjustments a presidential proclamation of Aug. 6 set for Dec. 4. Commerce is comparing each importer of record’s volumes from Jan. 1 through Aug. 6 against its weekly average for 2025, and watching for the use of affiliates that do not customarily import these goods. Importers of record that registered with Customs and Border Protection on or after Aug. 6 face weekly ceilings until Dec. 4. The ceilings are 12 kilograms under the polysilicon heading, 7 kilograms under the doped chemical element headings, 2,000 units of photovoltaic cells not assembled into modules, and 55 units of cells assembled into modules or panels. Commerce says it may adjust those volumes. An importer hit with a prohibition may apply to Commerce for a waiver and must explain the business considerations behind its import volumes. Commerce and Customs and Border Protection will act against importers and customs brokers who set up multiple importers of record to get around the rule. The rule runs through Dec. 3.

Source: Federal Register, Sept. 24

BIZ  The comment period on new small-business size standards is open again through Nov. 20. The Small Business Administration extended by 60 days the comment periods on the size standards it proposed Aug. 20 and on the revised methodology behind them. The extension took effect on filing Sept. 21, the day the original windows were set to close, so the record never shut. Size standards set the receipts and employee ceilings that decide which firms may compete as small businesses on federal work, and the proposed revision reworks the methodology used to draw them. The notice of proposed rulemaking sits at 91 FR 53741 and the revised methodology at 91 FR 54096. RIN 3245-AI67, 13 CFR part 121.

Source: Federal Register, Sept. 24

WORKFORCE  A university study will test what it takes to move construction crews from hard hats to Type II helmets. North Carolina State University will run a pilot with Comer Construction, a Maryland contractor, under a grant from the Job-Site Safety Institute, to evaluate the practical considerations, effectiveness, and feasibility of putting Type II helmets on active jobsites. Type II helmets add a chin strap and protect the sides of the head as well as the top. Type I hard hats protect the top only. An earlier study by the same researchers found that workers largely did not know the difference. 200 construction workers die of traumatic brain injuries in the United States each year, according to the institute. Cost is the obstacle named by the contractors in the study. A traditional hard hat runs $15 and a Type II helmet costs $100 and up. The institute has awarded $1.13 million in research and education grants since 2014.

Source: Construction Dive, Sept. 24

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