The (Almost) Daily Brief

Homeland Security Proposes $70,000 Fee for Initial Practical Training

By Megan Dayton · 10/8/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined me at this morning’s Leadership Breakfast. We walked through the demographic and economic forces reshaping the engineering workforce, and it was a great conversation. My thanks to all of you who made the time.

ENG  Two projects open new pavement to traffic today. Westbound Interstate 90 traffic begins using the new bridge over Highway 52 south of Rochester today. Crews demolished the old bridge earlier this year and replaced and lengthened it. The opening removes the remaining detours at the interchange. The project began in July 2024. Remaining work covers rumble strips, pavement markings, and signs, including new overhead signs, with periodic lane closures on southbound Highway 52 and in both directions of I-90 in the coming weeks. In Cambridge, new lanes and sidewalks on Highway 95 open to all travelers today as the first season of a two-year reconstruction closes. In six months crews rebuilt from Fern Street to west of Main Street, including sidewalks and adjacent entrances, and replaced underground storm sewer and utilities. Construction resumes in spring 2027 on the final segment from west of Main Street to east of Fillmore Street, with Highway 95 detoured again, and finishes that fall.

Sources: MnDOT, Oct. 5; MnDOT, Sept. 29

ENG  Duluth’s new London Road roundabout opened three of its legs this week. The roundabout at 26th Avenue East took traffic Tuesday. Southbound London Road drivers can now reach 26th Avenue East, London Road, and southbound Interstate 35, and traffic from 26th Avenue East toward Lake Superior reopened to London Road and southbound I-35. Northbound London Road stays closed at the roundabout and northbound I-35 traffic continues on its bypass, so those vehicles cannot yet reach 26th Avenue East. North of 40th Avenue East, London Road carries northbound traffic only, southbound traffic detours onto Superior Street to 40th Avenue East, and the southbound truck detour continues to 21st Avenue East. MnDOT puts the London Road project at $24.5 million, running from 26th Avenue East to just beyond 60th Avenue East at the Lester River. It covers pavement, pedestrian safety, roadway drainage, traffic flow, congestion, and traffic calming. Construction began in late April and runs through the end of October.

Source: Duluth News Tribune, Oct. 7

POLICY  A Minnesota appellate panel is weighing whether a county looked hard enough at a highway’s environmental effects. Steele County’s board adopted studies on Jan. 27 concluding that the East Side Corridor project does not have the potential for significant environmental impacts and that no environmental impact statement is required. Owatonna residents appealed that negative declaration, and a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals has heard argument in Case No. A26-0418. The group asked the court to decide whether the county took the legally required hard look at the project’s environmental impacts before issuing the declaration. The court has 90 days to issue an opinion. The county said the evidence supported its decision, that the project is excluded from Minnesota Pollution Control Agency noise standards, that it added mitigation measures to reduce noise, and that it addressed cumulative impacts in approving the record of decision and the negative declaration. The corridor, also called the 29th Avenue Corridor, is a highway proposed near residential housing in Owatonna. The residents’ group says the proposal puts a highway in a reduced right of way 17 feet from established neighborhoods, that the alignment rests on designs a quarter-century old, that the proposed 100-foot right of way may be inadequate to carry the road and its mitigation measures, and that earlier versions placed the highway 800 feet away. The group puts project costs at $9 million in 2022 and $30 million by 2024.

Source: KTTC, Oct. 7

POLICY  Northfield cut its data center setback from parks and trails from 3,950 feet to 200 feet. The city council voted unanimously Tuesday night after two hours of public comment and discussion. City Planner Mathias Hughey said the 3,950-foot standard made every industrial parcel in the city undevelopable and was drafted without a clear rationale, and that the new figure is still more restrictive than the standards on other industrial uses. The 2024 ordinance that set the original setback also requires 200 feet from residential structures, carries 17 performance standards covering noise, water use, glare, and vibration, and requires a conditional use permit triggered by any water use. The planning commission had recommended prohibiting data-processing facilities outright and researching a tiered framework, but because that recommendation was not in the published hearing notice, the council took up the setback as written. In a second motion, passed without dissent, the council directed staff to develop a tiered regulatory framework for data-processing facilities in the coming Land Development Code update, reaching past power consumption to water use. Community Development Director Scott Wopata said regulating a use is often more successful than prohibiting it. Most of the residents who spoke urged the council to keep the moratorium or reject the change.

Source: Northfield News, Oct. 7

POLICY  Texas utility regulators sued to keep data center locations out of the public record. The Public Utility Commission of Texas asked a Travis County judge Monday to block release of information showing where data centers and virtual currency mines operate, saying the details could aid terrorists. The suit sets the commission against the attorney general’s office over the reach of the state’s public-records law and its critical-infrastructure protections. Fields in dispute are the county a facility sits in and the regional water planning area it falls in. The commission argues those become privileged once combined with the rest of what its industry survey collects, including electricity demand, actual consumption, projected peak demand, water consumption, water sources, cooling technology, and the utilities and infrastructure serving a facility. It is not asking the court to seal the whole survey, only to hold the two geographic fields exempt under the Texas Homeland Security Act. The filing does not settle whether the information must ultimately be released.

Source: Route Fifty, Oct. 7

POLICY  The trade representative’s office opened a comment period on the European Union’s carbon border tariff. Comments are due Nov. 9 in docket USTR-2026-0661. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism requires European Union importers of aluminum, cement, electricity, fertilizer, hydrogen, and iron and steel products to declare the carbon dioxide and other specified greenhouse gas emissions embedded in production and to buy certificates against that amount. Full implementation began Jan. 1, 2026, and the European Union is weighing legislative proposals to extend coverage to downstream steel- and aluminum-intensive products. The office is seeking comment on the mechanism’s current and potential effect on U.S. producers, including small and medium producers, on workers, on direct and indirect exports, and on overall trade with the European Union, and on the potential effect of the expansion proposals. The comments will inform continued engagement with the European Union.

Source: Federal Register, Oct. 8

ENG  Two nuclear applications now before federal regulators would let site construction start before a permit issues. Both notices published Oct. 8. Blue Energy Global filed the first part of a phased construction permit application, with a limited work authorization request, for a single-unit BWRX-300 at the Blue Energy Center in Victoria, Texas, docket NRC-2026-4654. The second notice is the second of four weekly notices on an application from SMR, LLC on behalf of Palisades SMR, a Holtec International subsidiary, for a dual-unit SMR-300 named Pioneer Unit 1 and Pioneer Unit 2 at the Palisades Energy Center in Covert, Michigan, dockets 50-616 and 50-617. That application went in Dec. 31, 2025 and carries a limited work authorization request under 10 CFR 50.10(d), three exemption requests, and an environmental report covering the early work, the rest of construction, and operation. The commission accepted it for docketing Feb. 27 and is running a detailed technical review. A limited work authorization lets an applicant carry out specified early construction activities while the construction permit is still under review.

Sources: Federal Register, Oct. 8 (Blue Energy); Federal Register, Oct. 8 (Pioneer)

POLICY  State regulators decide Xcel Energy’s 2026 transmission cost recovery today. The Public Utilities Commission met at 11am and took up Xcel’s petition for approval of its 2026 Transmission Cost Recovery Rider revenue requirements and the resulting adjustment factors by customer class, docket E002/M-25-386, listed as undisputed. Two disputed Minnesota Power items follow. In docket E015/M-20-675 the commission considered a one-time bill credit returning land sale proceeds received through December 2025 through a new Customer Land Sales Credit Rider, with new and revised decision options from Commissioner Tuma. In docket E015/PA-24-198, the proceeding on the acquisition of ALLETE by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Global Infrastructure Partners, the commission considered Minnesota Power’s proposed SEC reporting plan and bill credit plan, with alternate decision options from staff, Commissioner Partridge, and Chair Sieben. The commission’s October calendar now carries agenda meetings on Oct. 14, Oct. 22, and Oct. 29.

Source: Minnesota PUC agenda, Oct. 8

FUNDING  Two area transportation partnerships meet Friday to program federal highway money. The Southeast Minnesota partnership, covering 11 counties, meets 10am to noon tomorrow, Oct. 9, in person or virtual, at the MnDOT District 6 headquarters, 2900 48th Street NW in Rochester. The South Central partnership, covering 13 counties, meets 11:30am to noon the same day at the MnDOT District 7 headquarters, 2151 Bassett Dr. in Mankato. The partnerships fold the project recommendations of metropolitan planning organizations, transit operators, MnDOT, cities, and counties into the area transportation improvement program, set criteria for project selection, and advise the district engineer. Both regions work under the 2026-2029 state transportation improvement program that federal highway and transit administrators approved Oct. 29, 2025. The northwest partnership’s Transportation Alternatives solicitation, announced Monday, carries a letter-of-intent deadline of Friday, Oct. 30.

Sources: MnDOT, Southeast Minnesota ATP; MnDOT, South Central Minnesota ATP

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

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