The Senate cleared Graham's $70 billion ICE/CBP reconciliation vehicle 50 to 48, the DHS shutdown became the longest single-agency shutdown in American history at Day 70, and Trump ordered the Navy to shoot any mine-laying boats in the Strait of Hormuz after Iran re-closed the waterway. OMB says the emergency payroll fund runs dry the week of May 6. Brent closed the week at $100.95. Graves marks up surface transportation on April 29. This is the week the cliffs stopped being theoretical.
FEMA and DHS
Day 70. On April 24, the DHS funding lapse officially became the longest single-agency shutdown in American history, eclipsing the 43-day 2025 record. The structural problem has not changed since Week 1: Speaker Mike Johnson continues to block a House floor vote on the bipartisan Senate DHS package, which would fund every DHS component except ICE and CBP, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune and at least one unnamed Senate Republican have publicly pressed Johnson to move it. No House vote was scheduled as of Friday afternoon.
What changed this week was the path around Johnson. Senator Graham (R-SC) skipped the Budget Committee, filed S.Con.Res. 33 directly on April 21, and secured a 52 to 46 motion to proceed on April 22. Democrats offered a long slate of amendments during vote-a-rama, including a broad Warner amendment seeking to force a House vote on the clean Senate DHS bill, and failed to attach any of them. The resolution cleared the Senate 50 to 48 at roughly 4:30 AM on April 23. It now authorizes Judiciary and Homeland Security to draft a $70 billion ICE and CBP funding title by May 15, with Senate leadership targeting a final reconciliation vehicle the week of May 11 and the White House insisting on a June 1 finish. The resolution still has to be adopted by the House.
The cliff that matters for borrowers is the Mullin/OBBBA payroll exhaustion. Secretary Mullin said plainly on April 21: "There is no more emergency fund." Treasury drew down $4.8 billion of OBBBA emergency authority across three pay cycles since February 27, leaving roughly $1.4 billion as of April 19 against a bi-weekly payroll of approximately $1.6 billion. Next payday falls between May 6 and May 8. If reconciliation has not been enacted by then, DHS stops issuing full checks, and every federal receivable that touches DHS, ICE, CBP, Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, Secret Service, runs through a clogged disbursement pipeline.
FEMA is operating at the edge. The Disaster Relief Fund stands at roughly $3.4 billion against a $3 billion Immediate Needs Funding trigger. A $5 billion Public Assistance release in late February cleared a piece of a backlog that still exceeds $14 billion, with COVID-era hospital reimbursements outstanding. Atlantic hurricane season opens June 1 with that buffer. The BRIC NOFO at $1 billion remains open with a July 23 application deadline. The 2025 HMGP obligations triggered by the South Carolina and Georgia declarations are still in the disbursement queue.
TSA held. Peak national callout on March 27 hit 11.83 percent, with some checkpoints running 44 to 55 percent short. Acting Administrator McNeill confirmed 480+ officer resignations since the shutdown began, and said the pipeline of replacement officers cannot clear checkpoint certification before the FIFA World Cup opening match on June 11.
The House Homeland Security Committee held a joint hearing April 21 on online scams, crypto fraud, and transnational criminal networks; the FBI put 2025 losses above $20 billion across more than 1 million complaints. No markup advanced.
Build America Bureau and USDOT
The week's biggest USDOT action was rail. On April 21, USDOT opened the $4.75 billion Northeast Corridor Partnership NOFO with a May 5 application deadline, and the $2.04 billion Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) NOFO with a June 22 deadline. Secretary Sean Duffy characterized the combined commitment as more than $6.7 billion in rail funding. Every qualified Amtrak NEC bondholder, commuter rail authority, and short-line operator should be in submission posture now; the May 5 NEC window is 11 business days.
Surface transportation reauthorization is the other calendar event. House T&I Chair Sam Graves is marking up on April 29. The topline is holding at $500 to $550 billion over 5 years, still not publicly finalized, with no bill text released as of Friday. Ranking Member Rick Larsen is pressing for a higher number. Senate EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito is waiting on the House before moving; EPW's April 29 calendar is an EPA budget hearing, not reauth. The September 30 IIJA cliff is 129 days out, and the Mass Transit Account is projected to go negative in FY2027.
Gateway advanced physically. The first Herrenknecht TBM components arrived in North Bergen around April 13; assembly is underway with drilling expected Q2 to Q3 2026. The Manhattan Tunnel contract was awarded in February 2025 ($1.18 billion to Frontier-Kemper/Tutor Perini JV), and the $205 million federal reimbursement restored by court order in February 2026 remains in litigation but is flowing.
The TIFIA and RRIF pipeline as of the April 1 report sits at roughly $38.4 billion in total letters of interest, a mild downward revision. The headline policy move was an April 23 Federal Register notice (docket DOT-OST-2026-1487) proposing interim TIFIA TOD loan-sizing caps, with a May 18 comment deadline. Any borrower with a transit-oriented development TIFIA application in the pipeline needs to file comments. Brightline West's $6 billion RRIF loan remains unapproved; the pipeline projects a Q1 2027 close, and $3 billion of PAB allocation expired December 31, 2025.
FTA Capital Investment Grants is the choke point. 46 projects, more than $28 billion in outstanding requests, zero new Full Funding Grant Agreements or engineering approvals since January 20, 2025. Hudson Tunnel, Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, and the Chicago Red Line extension are all frozen or under review. The FY2027 CIG request is $1.215 billion, a 63 percent cut from FY2026 enacted levels.
USDA and Rural Development
The SDRP deadline is April 30. Farmers and cooperatives with 2023 and 2024 crop disaster losses have six business days to close out $16 billion in Stage 1 and Stage 2 applications, with a two-year crop insurance requirement of at least 60 percent coverage attached to every dollar.
The Farm Bill (H.R. 7567) is moving. The House Rules Committee Dear Colleague letter on April 16 targeted the week of April 27 for a floor rule; the amendment deadline closed April 22 at noon. 330 farm organizations wrote House leadership on April 20 pressing for action. Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman confirmed on April 16 he is working "weeks not months" on a Senate bill covering the remaining 15 to 20 percent of the reauthorization not addressed in OBBBA, partnering with Senator Amy Klobuchar on rural hospitals, broadband, and loan-limit adjustments. No Senate text, no markup date.
REAP remains suspended. All Rural Energy for America Program grants are frozen under EO 14315 pending the 7 CFR 4280 Subpart B rewrite; USDA has not published an ANPRM or an NPRM, and the only public guidance remains "no immediate timeline available." REAP guaranteed loans continue to process under the OneRD platform.
OneRD itself is active. The FY2026 annual notice is effective with B&I guarantees set at 85 percent (under $5 million) and 80 percent ($5 million and above). USDA announced a loan-platform consolidation bringing 130+ legacy systems onto a single AI-enabled origination stack.
Community Facilities continues to fund. This week's obligations included $4.229 million to rural Florida on April 20 and $351,000 in West Virginia. The FY2027 budget proposes eliminating CF grants entirely, retaining only direct and guaranteed loans at $1.25 billion and $650 million respectively.
Secretary Brooke Rollins announced REE Mission Area reorganization on April 22 and 23, relocating ERS and NIFA to Kansas City, NASS to St. Louis, and decommissioning BARC, along with an FSIS reorganization anchored in Iowa. The Bennet-Moran Rural Hospital Revitalization Act introduced March 19 would add zero-interest CF loans for Critical Access and Rural Emergency Hospitals. The 2018 Farm Bill sits on its third extension through September 30, 2026.
P3 and Infrastructure Finance
PAB capacity remains at zero. Reason Foundation's April 13 call to remove the $30 billion federal cap entirely is the policy anchor heading into the April 29 Graves markup, and no committee draft language is public.
I-285 East in Georgia ($7.6 billion) is in active RFP phase with four shortlisted teams (285 East Peach Partners, East Perimeter Partners, Top End Mobility Group, plus one additional). A $2.5 billion TIFIA request is filed; the $1.1 billion PAB request is blocked by the cap. Preferred bidder is targeted for late summer.
I-77 South Charlotte ($3.2 billion) transmitted preliminary information to four shortlisted teams on March 13, with the first draft RFP now delayed to late June due to community opposition from historic Black neighborhoods along the corridor. Construction before the early 2030s is off the table.
PennDOT's I-76 Cintra unsolicited proposal ($5 billion, 16.9 miles of Schuylkill Expressway) is in High Level Screening; PennDOT's next unsolicited proposal window opens April 30.
I-24 Southeast Tennessee ($3.2 to $3.5 billion) closed its NEPA comment period March 31, released the April 17 visualization, shortlisted four teams, and has TIFIA and PAB requests pending along with a draft Central Business Office tolling system RFQ.
Tariffs remain the binding input-cost constraint. The April 2, 2026 Section 232 proclamation took effect April 6: 50 percent on core steel, aluminum, and copper; 25 percent on derivatives; 15 percent on industrial equipment through 2027. The ENR Construction Cost Index closed at 14,157.77 (up 2.6 percent YoY), the ENR Building Cost Index is up 4.2 percent YoY, and aluminum shapes are up roughly 33 percent YoY. Add the Iran oil shock to that picture: Q1 2026 construction input prices rose 18 percent annualized, diesel jumped 37.8 percent in March (the largest monthly rise since the 1991 Gulf War), and national average gasoline hit $4.03 per gallon.
Courts produced two relevant rulings. The Supreme Court's April 22 decision in Enbridge v. Nessel (no equitable tolling on removal deadlines) sends the Line 5 dispute to Michigan state court, precedent that tilts infrastructure concession disputes back to state forums. The 11th Circuit upheld a federal Project Labor Agreement mandate on April 21.
No major P3 financial closings this week. I-64 Hampton Roads and I-105 Los Angeles are next in the 2026 pipeline.
DOE and Energy Infrastructure
Palisades caught its biggest break of the restart. The NRC approved Relief Request RR-5-9 on April 8, authorizing half-nozzle repair on 45 RVCH penetration nozzles using GTAW with Alloy 52M filler and accepting Holtec's argument that SA-302 Grade B Modified is equivalent to SA-533 Grade B Class 1 per EPRI Report 1014351. That resolves the Certified Material Test Report gap on those 45 nozzles and takes roughly $750 million of cost risk off the table. A separate Relief Request RR-5-13 covering nozzle 5 is still pending. Primary system passivation completed April 2. The $1.52 billion DOE loan guarantee remains intact. No hard restart date.
Constellation's April 2 FERC filing on Crane (transferring 760 MW of Eddystone capacity injection rights to the Crane Clean Energy Center to route around PJM's 2031 transmission upgrade timeline) has not received a ruling this week. Eddystone's emergency operating order expires May 24, and that is now the key date to watch.
SPARK applications close May 20. $1.9 billion across three topic areas (Grid Resilience $427 million, Smart Grid $614 million, Grid Innovation $862 million) with selection expected August 2026. Concept papers already closed April 2.
DOE's Energy Development Fund under Director Greg Beard holds $289 billion in authority, is de-obligating $29.9 billion and revising $53.6 billion in Biden-era commitments, and Beard confirmed at CERAWeek that loan review timelines have compressed from 18 months to "a few months." The Southern Company $26.54 billion closure on February 25 remains the benchmark: $22.4 billion to Georgia Power, $4.1 billion to Alabama Power, financing 16+ GW including 5 GW of gas, 6.3 GW of nuclear uprates, and 1,300+ miles of transmission.
FERC declined to meet DOE's April 30 deadline on large-load interconnection reform, committing instead to act by the end of June in Docket RM26-4-000. The open question is the 100 percent participant funding model for loads above 20 MW. Full rule implementation is not expected until 2027.
Five hydrogen hubs (roughly $5 billion combined) and two DAC hubs ($1.2 billion) were preserved on the DOE list sent to House Appropriations in mid-April; the green-hydrogen ARCHES and Pacific Northwest hubs remain terminated. The $500 million Critical Minerals NOFO and a separate $69 million Critical Minerals Accelerator NOFO both close April 24.
On LNG, Cheniere closed at a record $300.89, Venture Global secured $8.6 billion in new financing, and US exports ran at a record 17.9 Bcf/d as JKM Asia spot LNG sits more than 140 percent above pre-conflict levels with Ras Laffan offline.
What This Means For Federal Borrowers And Contractors
- The DHS payroll cliff is May 6 to May 8, not June 1. If Secretary Mullin's $1.6 billion bi-weekly math is right, the reconciliation vehicle has to be enacted within roughly two weeks, not five. Any contractor with a DHS receivable, FEMA Public Assistance reimbursement, Coast Guard invoice, or ICE/CBP progress payment needs to assume no cash until June at the earliest and should have bridge capacity locked now. American Bridge Capital is underwriting DHS receivables at point of obligation, not payment.
- The longest-in-history designation does not make the shutdown shorter. Contractors treating Day 70 as a psychological ceiling will get caught; OMB, Treasury, and the White House are priced for Day 90+. Build cash runway to mid-July, not May.
- The Iran shock is a hard input-cost tax. Oil at $100 Brent, diesel up 37.8 percent in a month, and 50 percent metals tariffs are compounding on every infrastructure bid board in the country. Cost-escalation clauses that looked generous in 2024 are materially underwater. Lock in steel, aluminum, copper, and diesel forward price commitments where contract structure allows, and push for change orders on any project awarded before the April 6 tariff effective date.
- The April 29 Graves markup and the May 5 NEC NOFO deadline are the two federal calendar events that matter most. Surface transportation reauth bill text will drop within days and will set the PAB cap, TIFIA sizing formulas, RRIF fee structure, and EV per-mile fee for the next five years. The $4.75 billion NEC window is 11 business days; every Amtrak-adjacent bondholder, commuter authority, and contractor on NEC infrastructure needs to be in final submission posture now.
- Calendar the four fixed deadlines nobody can extend: April 24 Critical Minerals NOFOs close, April 30 SDRP window closes on $16 billion in 2023-2024 crop disaster funds, May 18 TIFIA TOD comment period closes, May 20 SPARK full applications close. And circle May 24, when Eddystone's emergency operating order expires and Constellation needs a FERC answer to keep the Crane 2027 restart on track.