The (Almost) Daily Brief

Xcel Offers Rate Freeze to November 2028 for Early Tax Credits

By Megan Dayton · 10/15/2026

WORKFORCE  Homeland Security would stop telling its officers to defer to prior visa approvals. A proposed rule published Oct. 14 would delete 8 CFR 214.1(c)(5), the provision directing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to defer to its own earlier finding of eligibility when it adjudicates a Form I-129 extension involving the same parties and the same underlying facts. Comments close Nov. 13. The department now says the regulation effectively shifts the burden of proof from the petitioner to the adjudicating officer. Deference has moved four times since 2004: an April 2004 memorandum established it, an Oct. 23, 2017 memorandum rescinded it, April 2021 reinstated it, and the December 2024 rule modernizing H-1B requirements wrote it into the code. Among H-1B sites visited on extension petitions, the department’s own data put combined non-compliance and fraud at 22.39 percent from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2025 under deference, against 16.77 percent from fiscal 2018 through fiscal 2020 without it, with L-1A at 24.46 percent against 18.37 percent. Homeland Security puts the cost to petitioners at $133,987 per year in additional responses to requests for evidence, or $22.17 a request, on a time burden of 10 minutes.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 14 (91 FR 65119)

POLICY  The Environmental Protection Agency pushed the 2025 greenhouse gas reporting deadline from Oct. 30 to March 10. An interim final rule published and effective Oct. 14 carries the change under the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which takes annual data from 8,200 facilities, fuel suppliers, and carbon dioxide injection sites, generally those emitting at least 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. The agency issued the rule without prior notice, finding under the Administrative Procedure Act that notice and comment would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest, and made it effective on publication as a rule that relieves a restriction. The EPA says the extension gives it time to weigh comments on its separate reconsideration of the program, and gives reporting entities time to use any burden reduction it adopts for the 2025 year. Comments close Nov. 30. The agency will hold a virtual public hearing only if someone requests one on or before Oct. 19.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 14 (91 FR 65112)

PROJECTS  Google will not seek a property tax abatement for its proposed Hermantown data center. The company said Wednesday it dropped the request after discussions with local leaders and residents, and that it will look for another way to support Hermantown Community Schools. City estimates put the project’s property taxes at $240 million over the 20 years after completion, $90 million of it to Hermantown and $120 million to Saint Louis County. The abatement would have directed money to the school district and city projects, and it was among the objections residents have raised in recent months. A special use permit request goes to the Hermantown Planning and Zoning Commission on Oct. 20, and the city expects the permit and related agreements at a special City Council meeting on Oct. 26.

Source: WDIO, Oct. 14

POLICY  Wisconsin issued Enbridge a notice of violation over construction of the Line 5 reroute. The state Department of Natural Resources alleged on Oct. 13 that the company breached permit conditions for the reroute and state laws covering water quality, wetlands, navigable waterways, air quality, stormwater, and endangered resources, for conduct between March 30 and Sept. 21. The notice also alleges an unpermitted bypass built around the site of an Aug. 25 accident, in which a parked third-party semi-truck rolled into an excavation and struck a bypass valve, releasing 1.3 million gallons of propane and butane vapors near Saxon, Wisconsin. The department has scheduled an enforcement conference and says it could issue citations or refer the case to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. It is still reviewing incidents after Sept. 21, among them a groundwater release that emerged under the Marengo River in late September during pipeline installation through a completed borehole. The department says it does not yet know whether an aquifer breach caused that release. Enbridge is building 41 miles of pipeline to route around Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa land. A fire at a construction site in White River on Oct. 13 was the third involving Enbridge facilities in recent weeks, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading an investigation into two from mid-September, one at a different Ashland County drilling site and one at a company office in Superior.

Source: Engineering News-Record, Oct. 14

WORKFORCE  The federal contractor minimum wage rises to $14.05 on Jan. 6. A Labor Department notice published Oct. 8 sets the 2027 rate under Executive Order 13658 at $14.05 an hour, with a $9.85 cash wage for tipped employees. Executive Order 14236 revoked Executive Order 14026 and its $15.00 contractor minimum on March 14, 2025, and the department says 13658 remains in effect as a result. It reaches a narrow set of contracts: Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act awards made between Jan. 1, 2015 and Jan. 29, 2022 that were never renewed or extended on or after Jan. 30, 2022. The department says the number of covered contracts has fallen sharply and continues to dwindle, and that it anticipates some existing contracts that never qualified as a new contract under 14026 remain subject to the older order. The rate moves each year with the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, rounded to the nearest five cents, and the order requires 90 days’ notice before a new rate takes effect. Check the award date and the renewal history on any federal contract still running from that window.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 8 (91 FR 64403)

POLICY  Saint Paul will study driverless vehicles before deciding whether to regulate them. The City Council approved the study on Oct. 14 and directed staff to examine the effect on public transportation, rideshare drivers, people with disabilities, public safety, and emergency response. Council President Rebecca Noecker said the city wants to hear from the community before deciding whether guardrails are possible. No timeline has been set for the study. In Minneapolis, the council votes today on whether to override Mayor Jacob Frey’s veto of the ordinance it passed 7 to 6 on Oct. 1. That ordinance would require a licensed human safety monitor inside every driverless rideshare vehicle with immediate access to the steering, braking, and acceleration controls, a city license for the operator, and minimum wage pay for the monitor. An override needs nine votes.

Source: FOX 9, Oct. 14

PROJECTS  Work on the Stillwater Lift Bridge’s festoon cable and lift motor starts Monday, Oct. 19. MnDOT will replace the festoon electrical cable that powers the lift motor, the motor itself, and the bridge’s steel platforms, ladders, and railings. The summer lift schedule ends with a final lift at 11:59pm on Tuesday, Oct. 20, after which the span stays down until spring unless a boater requests a lift 24 hours ahead. Crews will work Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm. The sidewalk on the south side stays open, and the former driving surface will be fenced off along the length of the bridge during the week and reopened on weekends. The lift schedule resumes in spring 2027, and MnDOT expects the maintenance finished by mid-May 2027.

Source: MnDOT, Oct. 13

POLICY  Caledonia’s City Council voted to oppose the Gopher to Badger Link transmission line. The council passed Resolution 2026-14 unanimously on Oct. 12. Members discussed sending it to state and federal representatives and submitting it before and during the public comment period. City Clerk and Administrator Jake Dickson said members drafted the resolution after hearing from the NO765MN group. Houston County has adopted its own opposition resolution, and council members said La Crescent is weighing a position. Dickson said Planning Commission hearings are coming on a proposed 12-month data center moratorium and a snow emergency ordinance, and reported that mediation is under way on the city’s wastewater treatment plant construction project.

Source: Caledonia Argus, Oct. 14

BIZ  Cardinal Infrastructure Group agreed to buy a central Florida heavy civil contractor for $357.5 million. The Raleigh, North Carolina company announced the purchase of Hughes Brothers Construction on Oct. 13, with performance payments that could take the total to $455 million, and expects to close in the fourth quarter. Hughes Brothers brings 500 employees, $350 million in backlog, and $220 million in trailing 12-month revenue. It self-performs underground utility, earthwork, grading, roadway, and site-development work with 300 pieces of heavy equipment and 25 full-time pipe crews. Cardinal will fund the initial purchase with $156 million in new debt, cash, and Class A common stock, with at least 40 percent of the consideration in shares. It is Cardinal’s fourth acquisition this year, after A.L. Grading Contractors in Georgia, Piedmont Pipe Construction in North Carolina, and Allied Paving Contractors. The company listed on the Nasdaq in December 2025.

Source: Engineering News-Record, Oct. 15

ENG  A University of Minnesota analysis maps road and bridge condition county by county. The Transportation Policy and Economic Competitiveness program at the Humphrey School assessed condition, safety, and performance across the National Highway System and the County State-Aid Highway system from 2018 through 2024, using data the state already collects. The National Highway System carries 10 percent of statewide lane miles and most of the traffic. The analysis puts the County State-Aid system at more than twice that length carrying far less. On pavement, 80 percent of National Highway System roads and 60 percent of County State-Aid roads are in good condition, the County State-Aid system holds more than double the National Highway System’s poor mileage, and interstates hold the highest pavement quality. The analysis calls the 13,500-bridge network generally well maintained, but finds condition declining since 2019 as the fair-condition count grows, and northwest Minnesota carries a higher rate of bridges in poor condition. Minnesota counties average 929 crashes per 100,000 people, and from 2019 through 2023 property-damage crashes fell 22 percent and fatal and injury crashes fell 13 percent. Camila Fonseca-Sarmiento, who led the work and directs fiscal research at the Humphrey School’s Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance, said understanding how conditions vary across the state is essential to prioritizing resources.

Source: University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies, Oct. 6

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