# Capveon > Capveon is AI that finds, understands, and wins government work for manufacturers, their reps, contractors and engineering firms. It reads every page of the public projects in your market and tells you which ones are yours, why, and what to do next. Capveon reads the public record of cities, counties, utilities, state DOTs and federal agencies (agendas, capital plans, funding awards, solicitations, specifications, drawings and awards). For every project it answers the questions a manufacturer, rep, contractor or engineer would otherwise answer by hand: what is this, who is behind it, is it for us, where do we fit, what will it take, and what do we do next. Every answer cites the page it came from. It drafts the next step (a note to the engineer, a requirements checklist, product data) and adds the project to the CRM the customer already uses (Salesforce, HubSpot) when a person says so. Capveon never sends or submits anything itself. Four audiences in public work: manufacturers whose products are specified into public projects; the manufacturers’ reps who sell them in a territory; the contractors who build that work; and the engineering firms who design it. Wastewater, heavy civil and industrial, municipal and federal. Backed by Y Combinator (Fall 2026). Contact: hello@capveon.ai. Demos: https://capveon.ai/#demo. ## Who it is for All of it: https://capveon.ai/solutions - [Manufacturers](https://capveon.ai/solutions/manufacturers): Building products and equipment for public work. Know which projects your products belong in. Know where your products fit on public projects, from the first design to the final spec. - [Manufacturers’ reps](https://capveon.ai/solutions/manufacturers-reps): Every line you carry, across your territory. See what’s being designed in your territory, first. For reps who carry several lines and know the engineers: every public project, read for where your lines fit. - [Contractors](https://capveon.ai/solutions/contractors): Heavy civil, wastewater and industrial work. Know which jobs are worth your crew’s time. See public work coming from the funding to the bid, and know which jobs fit your crews. - [Engineering firms](https://capveon.ai/solutions/engineering-firms): Design and program management for public owners. Know which projects need an engineer, before the RFQ. See public projects while the owner is still planning them, and know which RFQs are worth your team’s time. Markets and intents: - [Municipal work](https://capveon.ai/solutions/municipal): Cities, counties, utilities and districts. Every city, county and utility, read. Know what local governments are planning, funding and bidding in your market, project by project. - [Federal work](https://capveon.ai/solutions/federal): Federal agencies, installations and federally funded projects. Know what federal agencies will build next. Forecasts, solicitations and grants from every agency, read for what fits your work. - [Pre-RFP intelligence](https://capveon.ai/solutions/pre-rfp-intelligence): Public projects found in the funding, the plan and the engineer selection. Pre-RFP intelligence for public infrastructure. Find public projects in the funding, the capital plan and the engineer selection, long before the RFP. - [Bid intelligence](https://capveon.ai/solutions/bid-intelligence): What’s out to bid, and where each one’s boundaries are. Bid intelligence that reads the whole bid. Every public bid in your market, read for scope, products and fit, with the page behind each answer. ## What it does All of it: https://capveon.ai/use-cases - [Following the funding](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/following-the-funding): See what’s getting funded, years before it bids. Grants, state loans, bonds and capital plans in your area, read for what they will build and when. - [Getting in early](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/getting-in-early): Know what’s being designed, and who is designing it. Projects in planning and design, the engineer behind each one, and what to ask them while the design can still change. - [Reading specs and drawings](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/reading-specs-and-drawings): Know the boundaries of every spec. Who is named, whether an equal is allowed, where your scope starts and stops, and the page that says so. - [Deciding what to chase](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/deciding-what-to-chase): Sixty projects bidding. Know the three that are yours. Every project checked against what you make or build, with the reasons, so your team spends its time on the few that matter. - [Selling through reps](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/selling-through-reps): Every territory covered, every rep a step ahead. The projects in each rep’s territory, read and ranked, so the work worth chasing reaches the right rep first. - [Preparing the response](https://capveon.ai/use-cases/preparing-the-response): The first draft is ready when you are. The checklist, the note to the engineer, the product data and the plan, drafted from the documents and your own past work. ## Research - [The State of American Infrastructure, Fall 2026](https://capveon.ai/research/state-of-american-infrastructure-2026) (2026-09-21): What is funded, what is stalled, what it costs to build right now, and what the public record says comes next. Written for the people who bid, supply and underwrite the work. - [Build America, Buy America: what changes for a manufacturer when the project is federally funded](https://capveon.ai/research/build-america-buy-america-for-manufacturers) (2026-09-21): Every SRF loan, every formula highway dollar and every infrastructure-law grant carries a domestic-content rule. Here is what it requires, product by product, how waivers work, and where the public record tells you who could not comply. - [Basis of design: how manufacturers get written into specs, and out of them](https://capveon.ai/research/basis-of-design-how-manufacturers-get-specified) (2026-08-11): Specified revenue is the cheapest revenue a manufacturer has. It is won during design and lost in addenda. - [State revolving funds: the funding signal most pursuit teams ignore](https://capveon.ai/research/state-revolving-funds-explained) (2026-07-29): Clean Water and Drinking Water SRF intended use plans list, by name, the projects a state expects to finance. They are published every year and read by almost no one in sales. The State of American Infrastructure report is also at https://capveon.ai/report. ## Data [Public infrastructure data](https://capveon.ai/data): the Capveon API (programmatic access to public projects, the organizations behind them and their documents, by API key), an MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude and other agents, and commercial data licensing. Sources are the public record: federal and state procurement, funding programs, local agendas and capital plans, and bid documents. Coverage for a given market is covered on a demo. [Questions about the data](https://capveon.ai/questions) ## Company - [How it works](https://capveon.ai/how-it-works): how Capveon finds, reads and acts on a project, and how a person stays in control. - [Security](https://capveon.ai/security): tenant isolation, human approval before anything leaves Capveon, every claim cited to its source. - [About](https://capveon.ai/about) - [For investors](https://capveon.ai/investors) - [Conferences](https://capveon.ai/conferences): free meeting plans for infrastructure trade shows. - [WEFTEC 2026: who to meet on the exhibit floor](https://capveon.ai/weftec): a free meeting plan for WEFTEC 2026 in New Orleans (26-30 September, exhibits 28-30), built from the official exhibitor directory. Tell Capveon what you do and receive a Word document naming 8 to 12 booths, in walking order, with a reason and a question for each. - [Partners](https://capveon.ai/partners): for data providers, systems of record, implementation firms and associations. Capveon does not sell leads or replace a partner's product. - [Capabilities statement](https://capveon.ai/capabilities): for procurement and teaming. - [Privacy](https://capveon.ai/privacy), [Terms](https://capveon.ai/terms) # Research, in full ## The State of American Infrastructure, Fall 2026 https://capveon.ai/research/state-of-american-infrastructure-2026. Published 2026-09-21. What is funded, what is stalled, what it costs to build right now, and what the public record says comes next. Written for the people who bid, supply and underwrite the work. - Public construction is running at $543 billion a year (July 2026, seasonally adjusted annual rate). Highways are up 4.5 percent on the year, water supply up 1.1 percent, sewer down 1.1 percent. Total construction is down 3.8 percent because factory building fell 21 percent from its 2025 peak. - The infrastructure law did not lapse on September 30. Its surface programs run to December 11, 2026 at prorated FY2026 levels, and the Bridge Formula Program, NEVI and intercity passenger rail had no FY2027 money on October 1. A five-year bill cleared committee in the House. The Senate has none. - Most infrastructure-law money is committed but not yet spent. Across DOT, EPA, Interior and NTIA, 76 percent of $574.7 billion is obligated and 41 percent has been disbursed. The difference is construction that has not happened yet, attached to named recipients. - The Highway Trust Fund's highway account approaches zero in FY2028 and the transit account in FY2027. A five-year bill at the House's levels needs roughly $150 billion in general-fund transfers. - Water needs are $625 billion for drinking water and $630 billion for clean water over twenty years. FY2026 SRF appropriations were flat, but 54 percent of the clean water fund and 64 percent of the drinking water fund went to 1,163 congressional earmarks paid directly to communities, so every state's loan pool shrank. FY2026 is also the last year of the law's supplemental SRF money. - EPA cut its count of lead service lines from 9.0 million to about 4 million after the 2025 inventories. The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements take effect November 1, 2027, with replacement running to the end of 2037. - Power is the one market growing everywhere. Investor-owned utilities plan $238.8 billion of capital spending in 2026, up 17 percent, and $1.4 trillion through 2030. One in six ABC contractors is under contract on a data center, the highest share on record. - Inputs cost 8.9 percent more than a year ago. Steel mill products are up 23.4 percent, aluminum mill shapes 27.3 percent, copper and brass 20.9 percent, diesel 77.8 percent, liquid asphalt 16.4 percent. Seven in ten contractors report tariff effects; four in ten raised bid prices; one in five added price-sharing terms. - Backlog is 8.5 months. Infrastructure contractors carry 10.0 months, up from 8.8 in July and down from 11.2 a year ago. Contractors without data center work had 7.5 months in July. - Owners are borrowing at a record pace: $294.9 billion of municipal bonds in the first half of 2026, on track for about $600 billion for the year, because deferring the work has become more expensive than financing it. This is a working report. It puts the federal statistics and the industry surveys of the last ninety days side by side with what Capveon's own reading of the public record shows, and it says what each number means for four kinds of reader: the contractor who bids the work, the manufacturer whose product gets specified into it, the supply chain that prices and delivers it, and the investor who underwrites the companies that do all three. Every figure names its source and its date. Where a figure is Capveon's, it says so and says how it was counted. The short version: the money is real and most of it has not been spent yet; the federal framework that produced it is on a ten-week extension; the cost of building has moved faster in twelve months than at any time since 2022; and the fastest-growing demand is coming from a customer, the data center, that did not exist at this scale when the law was written. ### Where the money is going - $543.4B: Public construction, annual rate, July 2026 (Census) - +4.5%: Public highway and street, year over year (Census) - +1.1%: Public water supply, year over year (Census) - -1.1%: Public sewage and waste, year over year (Census) - -21.2%: Manufacturing construction, year over year (Census) - +5.3%: Power construction, year over year (Census) The Census Bureau's September 1 release put construction spending in July 2026 at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,157.6 billion, 3.8 percent below July 2025. Through the first seven months of the year, $1,244.6 billion was put in place, 3.5 percent below the same period of 2025. Public construction was $543.4 billion at an annual rate, 0.2 percent below June and within the survey's margin of error of flat. The decline is private, and it is one category. Manufacturing construction, the factory-building boom that carried 2023 through 2025, ran at $169.8 billion in July against $215.6 billion a year earlier, a fall of 21.2 percent. Nothing else moved on that scale. Public highway and street work was $150.3 billion, up 4.5 percent on the year. Public water supply was $35.1 billion, up 1.1 percent. Public sewage and waste disposal was $51.9 billion, down 1.1 percent. Power, public and private together, was $181.5 billion, up 5.3 percent. Conservation and development, the flood control and navigation category, was up 28.1 percent from a small base. The reading: the headline decline in construction is not an infrastructure story. Public work is flat to up. The two categories with the most momentum, highways and power, are the two with the most predictable funding: formula money for one, rate-based capital plans for the other. The category with the least momentum, sewer, is the one that leans hardest on the state revolving funds, which is where the next section ends up. ### The law, the extension, and the cliff behind it - Dec 11, 2026: Surface transportation programs now expire (H.R. 6500) - FY2028: Highway account of the Highway Trust Fund approaches zero (CBO) - FY2027: Mass transit account approaches zero (CBO) - ~$150B: General-fund transfer a five-year House bill would need (Eno, from CBO) The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's surface transportation authorization was due to expire on September 30, 2026. It did not. The Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (H.R. 6500) passed the Senate 90 to 6 on August 8, passed the House 370 to 48 on September 1, and was signed on September 2. It funds the government and extends the surface programs through December 11, 2026, most of them at prorated FY2026 levels. What it does not do is fund the law's Division J advance appropriations. According to AASHTO, that leaves the Bridge Formula Program, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program and the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail with no FY2027 money on October 1. The American Public Transportation Association puts the effect at a 20 percent cut to transit funding and an 81 percent cut to passenger rail against current levels. The five-year bill exists in one chamber. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved the BUILD America 250 Act (H.R. 8870), which authorizes highway, transit, safety and Amtrak programs through FY2031. House leadership then cut the September session short; the last pre-election day was September 17, and the Eno Center's read is that a lame-duck floor vote is uncertain. The Senate has not released a bill. Eno's history is worth carrying around: since the late 1990s, once Congress has extended a surface bill once, one extension has never been enough. Behind the authorization sits the Highway Trust Fund. The Congressional Budget Office's 2026 baseline has the highway account approaching zero in FY2028 and the mass transit account in FY2027. The gap between the highway account's revenue and its outlays was about $17 billion in FY2025 and grows to $27 billion by FY2036. Eno's analysis of CBO's June baseline is that a five-year bill at the House committee's spending levels needs almost $150 billion in general-fund transfers to stay solvent through FY2031. If the account is depleted, FHWA slows reimbursements to states for completed work and reduces apportionments. The reading: state DOTs are building their 2027 letting schedules on a ten-week extension and a trust fund with about two years left. Formula highway money keeps flowing at FY2026 rates through December 11. Discretionary and advance-appropriated programs are the ones with a hole in them right now, and the projects that depend on them are the ones to watch for delay, re-scoping or a bond issue in their place. ### The money that already exists - $574.7B: IIJA funds provided to DOT, EPA, Interior and NTIA, FY2022 to FY2025 (GAO) - 76%: Obligated ($434.2B) (GAO) - 41%: Disbursed, as a share of what was provided (GAO) - 72% / 41%: EPA's IIJA funds obligated and outlaid, January 31, 2026 (EPA OIG) The Government Accountability Office reviewed the four agencies that received most of the law's money. Of the $574.7 billion provided to the Departments of Transportation and the Interior, the EPA and the NTIA for fiscal years 2022 through 2025, the agencies had obligated $434.2 billion, 76 percent, and disbursed $235.6 billion, 54 percent of what was obligated and 41 percent of what was provided. The EPA's Inspector General reports the same shape for the agency's own $60 billion: 72 percent obligated and 41 percent outlaid as of January 31, 2026. Of the state and tribal assistance grants, the account that funds the revolving funds and lead line replacement, 64 percent was obligated. An obligation is a signed agreement between an agency and a named recipient for a named purpose. A disbursement is money paid for work done. The gap between the two, roughly $200 billion at these four agencies alone, is construction that has been promised to a specific city, county, state, authority or utility and has not yet been built. The same GAO review found that after the January 2025 executive orders paused the money for review, agencies approved about 9,500 awards worth $128 billion, canceled about 800 worth $17.8 billion, and still had roughly 2,500 awards worth $33.6 billion pending a decision. The reading: the next three construction seasons are funded by dollars that already exist and are already attached to recipients. The commercial question is not whether the money is coming. It is which owners hold it, what they have to build with it, and when they will advertise. Every one of those answers is in a public document: the grant agreement, the state transportation improvement program, the SRF intended use plan, the council agenda that accepts the award. Those documents are what Capveon reads, and the next section is where they matter most. ### Water: the need is known to the dollar, the funding is not - $625B: Drinking water needs over 20 years (EPA 7th DWINSA) - $630.1B: Clean water needs over 20 years (EPA 2022 CWNS) - 54% / 64%: Share of FY2026 CWSRF and DWSRF appropriations reserved for earmarks (CRS) - 1,163: Earmarked water projects, FY2026, paid directly to communities (CRS) - 4 million: Lead service lines, 2025 estimate, down from 9.0 million (EPA) - Nov 1, 2027: Lead and Copper Rule Improvements compliance date (EPA) The two federal needs surveys are the closest thing the sector has to a bill of quantities. The EPA's seventh Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey puts twenty-year need at $625 billion: $422.9 billion for distribution and transmission pipe, $107 billion for treatment, $56.1 billion for storage and $25.2 billion for source. The 2022 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey puts clean water need at $630.1 billion across 17,544 treatment works serving 270.4 million people: $151.1 billion for conveyance, $115.3 billion for stormwater, $94.4 billion for nonpoint source control, $83.6 billion for advanced treatment, $74.7 billion for decentralized systems, $66.6 billion for secondary treatment and $36.5 billion for combined sewer overflow correction. The 2027 survey is being prepared now. Against roughly $1.25 trillion of need, the base federal programs are small and, this year, smaller than they look. FY2026 appropriations for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund were $1.639 billion and for the Drinking Water SRF $1.126 billion, flat for the third year. But the Congressional Research Service notes that P.L. 119-74 reserves 54 percent of the clean water appropriation ($892.8 million) and 64 percent of the drinking water appropriation ($715.4 million) for community project funding, the earmarks, which EPA pays directly to 1,163 named recipients with a 20 percent local cost share rather than to the state funds. EPA's April allotment memo says it plainly: because Congress earmarked from the SRF appropriation again in FY2026, the SRF funding available to states decreased. The Environmental Policy Innovation Center estimates states lost $741.2 million of program set-aside capacity across FY2023, FY2024 and FY2026 as a result, whether or not they received a single earmark. The larger issue is the year after. The law's supplemental SRF capitalization, the money that has masked the earmark effect since FY2022, runs through FY2026. Absent new legislation, FY2027 state loan pools revert to the base appropriation minus whatever Congress earmarks from it. State intended use plans for 2027, most of which publish between now and spring, will show how each state intends to handle that. Lead is the one water program with a clock on it. After public water systems filed their first service line inventories in 2025, EPA revised its national estimate of lead service lines from 9.0 million (the 2023 update) to about 4 million. The law's $15 billion for lead service line replacement is being allotted on the new counts. The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements take effect on November 1, 2027, when systems must have baseline inventories and replacement plans in place; full replacement runs to December 31, 2037. The reading, for a manufacturer: the replacement plans due in November 2027 are the specification pipeline for the following ten years, and they will be public. The 1,163 earmarked projects are named, funded and cost-shared today, and every one of them is subject to Build America, Buy America. For a contractor: the sewer softness in the Census data is the SRF squeeze showing up in put-in-place spending, and the 2027 intended use plans are the earliest document that will say whether it eases. For a fund: water is the sector where need is documented to the dollar and funding is decided annually in public, which is the definition of a market you can read ahead of. ### Power: the one market growing everywhere - $238.8B: Investor-owned utility capital spending planned for 2026, up 17% (EEI) - $1.4T: Planned 2026 through 2030, up from $1.1T for 2025 through 2029 (EEI) - 55+ GW: Connected large-load projects in EEI's snapshot, about $900B of investment (EEI) - 32 of 51: Utilities citing data centers as a capital driver on earnings calls (PowerLines) - 1 in 6: ABC contractors under contract on a data center, a record (ABC) Investor-owned electric utilities spent a record $204.1 billion on capital in 2025, the fourteenth consecutive record, and the Edison Electric Institute projects $238.8 billion in 2026, an increase of 17 percent, on the way to $1.4 trillion between 2026 and 2030. That five-year figure was $1.1 trillion a year ago. EEI's running snapshot of announced data center and large-customer projects stands at about $900 billion and more than 55 gigawatts of connected load. PowerLines read the earnings calls of 51 utilities and found 32 naming data centers and load growth as a top driver of their capital plans, 28 naming resiliency and weather, and 16 naming replacement of aging infrastructure. Nine expect more than 5,000 megawatts of growth each. American Electric Power doubled its forecast to 56,000 megawatts of new demand by 2030, 88 percent of it data centers, 36,000 megawatts of it in Texas. The Census power category, public and private, was up 5.3 percent on the year in July while almost everything else private was down. On the contractor side, Associated Builders and Contractors reports that roughly one in six of its members is under contract on a data center, the highest proportion it has recorded, and that those contractors carry 9.9 months of backlog against 8.3 months for everyone else. In July the gap was wider: 11.4 months against 7.5. The reading: for an infrastructure contractor, the site civil, the substation, the water and cooling connections and the transmission that serve a data center are the same trades as a treatment plant, sold to a different buyer with a shorter approval cycle. For a manufacturer, switchgear, transformers, cable, pipe and valves are all in the input price table below with double-digit increases, which is what happens when one customer class absorbs supply. For a supply chain, it is the segment where lead time, not price, is the binding constraint. Rate-based utility capital plans are filed publicly, years out, with the regulator. ### What it costs to build - +8.9%: Construction input prices, August 2025 to August 2026 (BLS PPI via ABC and AGC) - +23.4%: Steel mill products (AGC) - +27.3%: Aluminum mill shapes (AGC) - +20.9%: Copper and brass mill shapes (AGC) - +77.8%: Diesel fuel (AGC) - +16.4%: Liquid asphalt (AGC) The producer price index for inputs to construction rose 1.2 percent in August alone and 8.9 percent over twelve months; nonresidential inputs rose 8.8 percent. AGC attributes the largest increases to petroleum products and to metals under tariffs of up to 50 percent: steel mill products up 23.4 percent, aluminum mill shapes 27.3 percent, copper and brass mill shapes 20.9 percent, diesel fuel 77.8 percent at the refinery gate, liquid asphalt 16.4 percent. ABC's chief economist adds softwood lumber, switchgear and copper wire and cable to the list of inputs up more than 10 percent, notes oil back above $100 a barrel, and points at the trade dispute with Canada. The month before tells the more important story. In July, AGC reported aluminum mill shapes up 40.5 percent, liquid asphalt up 45.2 percent and diesel up 44.2 percent. In August, asphalt was up 16.4 percent and diesel 77.8 percent. A paving bid priced in July on July's asphalt and diesel was wrong by August, in opposite directions. The level of inflation is a problem. The month-to-month swing in individual inputs is a bigger one, because that is what a fixed-price quote absorbs. AGC's 2026 outlook survey, taken in December and January, shows how firms are handling it. About 70 percent report being affected by tariffs. Forty percent raised bid prices in response. Twenty percent added price-sharing adjustments or similar terms to their contracts. Thirty-five percent passed most or all of the cost to owners; 11 percent absorbed most or all of it. Thirty-two percent accelerated purchases and 13 percent switched from foreign to domestic producers. Labor has not eased. Eighty-two percent of firms report difficulty filling hourly craft positions and 80 percent salaried ones, the highest shares in three years of the survey; 63 percent still expect to add headcount in 2026. A majority, 53 percent, expects craft hiring to stay hard or get harder. The reading: the quote is the risk. The firms that put escalation or price-sharing language into contracts (one in five) kept their margin; the firms that absorbed (one in nine) gave it away. For a supply chain that prices and delivers into this market, quote validity windows, index-linked clauses and a live view of which inputs are moving are not sophistication, they are the difference between the 20 percent and the 11. ### Backlog and sentiment - 8.5 mo: ABC Construction Backlog Indicator, August 2026 (ABC) - 10.0 mo: Infrastructure, up from 8.8 in July, down from 11.2 a year ago (ABC) - 8.3 mo: Heavy industrial, down 2.7 months on the year (ABC) - 7.5 mo: Contractors without data center work, July 2026 (ABC) ABC's backlog indicator rebounded to 8.5 months in August from 8.0 in July, which had been the lowest reading since January; it is unchanged from August 2025. Infrastructure backlog rose 1.2 months to 10.0, the longest of the three sectors, but a year ago it was 11.2. Heavy industrial fell to 8.3 months, 2.7 months below its year-ago level, which is the manufacturing construction decline from the Census table arriving in contractors' books. Commercial and institutional backlog was 8.5 months. The July release is the one to reread. Contractors not under contract on a data center, 88 percent of ABC's membership at the time, averaged 7.5 months of backlog. Firms with $30 million to $50 million in annual revenue reported their lowest backlog since March 2020. ABC's economist said the data center boom masks the depth of the weakness elsewhere. AGC's members entered 2026 with what the association called dampened expectations: net optimism only for data centers and power, and rising concern about recession risk, materials costs and project financing, with owners postponing or canceling projects as financing tightened. The reading: infrastructure is the longest backlog and it is shrinking on the year. The squeeze is on the small and mid-size firm without a data center contract, which is both a warning for that firm and a consolidation signal for anyone acquiring in the sector. ### How owners are paying for it - $294.9B: Municipal bond issuance, first half of 2026, a record, up 5.8% (Bond Buyer, LSEG) - ~$600B: Consensus full-year 2026 forecast, against a 2025 record near $580B (Bond Buyer) - +30%: Issuance in 6 to 10 year maturities, led by new money (AllianceBernstein) The municipal market issued $294.884 billion of debt in the first half of 2026, 5.8 percent above the previous first-half record of $278.694 billion set in 2025, according to LSEG data reported by the Bond Buyer. Forecasts for the full year have converged around $600 billion, which would beat 2025's record of nearly $580 billion and make three consecutive years of growth. J.P. Morgan's strategists list the drivers: the expiration of federal fiscal stimulus, historically deferred infrastructure and maintenance, data centers, climate resiliency, regulatory compliance and capacity. One strategist's summary, quoted by the Bond Buyer, is that after two years of waiting for rates to fall, issuers have accepted that delaying critical projects costs more than borrowing at today's rates. AllianceBernstein notes that the growth is in the intermediate part of the curve, with six to ten year issuance up 30 percent year over year and led by new-money financing, while 21 to 30 year and 30-plus year issuance fell 19 and 25 percent. Water is in the flow: a $2.4 billion Aquarion Water Authority deal in Connecticut was among the largest of July. The reading: a new-money bond is the document trail before the bid. The official statement lists, by name and amount, the projects the proceeds will fund, and it publishes months before any of them advertises. For a fund, the same statement is a public disclosure of a customer's capital program, credit and rate covenants. ### The grade - C: ASCE 2025 Report Card, up from C- in 2021, highest since 1998 (ASCE) - $9.1T: Investment needed 2024 through 2033 to reach good repair (ASCE) - $3.7T: Gap at current funding levels, up from $2.59T in 2021 (ASCE) - $4.4T: Gap if federal funding snaps back to pre-2021 levels (ASCE) The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2025 Report Card graded the country's infrastructure a C, up from C- in 2021 and the highest mark since the report began in 1998. Grades across 18 categories ranged from a B for ports to a D for stormwater and transit; eight categories improved and, for the first time since 1998, none was rated D-. ASCE counts more than 60,000 projects funded by the infrastructure law. ASCE estimates $9.1 trillion of investment is needed from 2024 through 2033 to bring all 18 categories to a state of good repair, against $5.4 trillion of expected public and private investment if Congress holds recent funding levels, leaving a $3.7 trillion gap. If federal investment returned to pre-2021 levels, ASCE's Bridging the Gap study puts the shortfall at $4.4 trillion, with $5 trillion of lost economic output over twenty years. The reading: the grade improved because the money arrived. The next report card is graded on what Congress does between now and December 11 and on the FY2027 appropriations that follow. ### What the public record shows - 80: Public sources Capveon reads continuously - ~1.5M: Records in the corpus, September 2026 - ~33,000: Agencies named in the record - ~92,000: Vendors named in awards - 50: States whose SRF intended use plans are read Capveon reads about 80 public sources continuously: federal award and spending systems, every state's SRF intended use plans, state DOT and e-procurement portals, the council and board agenda platforms most cities and counties publish through, and the capital plans, budgets and specifications those bodies post. As of September 2026 the corpus holds roughly 1.5 million records: about 575,000 contract awards, 433,000 funding allocations, 389,000 out-for-bid notices, 2,600 capital plans and 134,000 rules and notices, naming about 33,000 agencies and 92,000 vendors. A record is a document read, not a deduplicated project, and an award, an allocation, a bid and a plan are different money at different stages of the same job. None of them is summed here. Three things in that record are worth more than any single statistic above. Capital plans are the rarest document and the earliest. There are roughly 200 award records in the corpus for every capital plan record. The same job appears as a line in a plan, then a funding action, then a bid, then an award, and the further along that sequence a document is, the more copies of it exist and the more people are reading it. Almost the entire industry reads the last two. Most bid notices publish no number. Of the roughly 389,000 out-for-bid records, the large majority carry no engineer's estimate or budget; the ones that do sum to about $52 billion. The dollar size of the near-term market is not in the bid notice. It is in the capital plan and the funding action that preceded it, which is also where the owner's name, the engineer of record and the funding source are. The earmark list is a project list. The explanatory statement to the FY2026 appropriations act names 1,163 water projects, their recipients and their amounts. Every one is funded, cost-shared and subject to Build America, Buy America, and it was public months before any of them advertised. The same is true of every SRF intended use plan, every state transportation improvement program and every adopted capital improvement plan. Reading them is not a research project. It is a data entry problem, and it is the one Capveon exists to remove. ### Four short readings For contractors. Bid the obligated money. The recipients of roughly $200 billion of committed, unspent federal infrastructure funds are named in public agreements, and their advertising dates are in their capital plans and agendas. Carry escalation or price-sharing language on anything with steel, aluminum, asphalt or diesel in it; one firm in five already does and it is the difference between the 8.9 percent input inflation landing on the owner or on you. Treat 10 months of infrastructure backlog as the average, not the floor; a year ago it was 11.2. For manufacturers. Two dated pipelines: the lead service line replacement plans due November 1, 2027, and the 1,163 FY2026 earmarked water projects already funded. Both carry Build America, Buy America, which means 55 percent domestic component cost for manufactured products, melt-to-coat domestic production for iron and steel, and a waiver only when domestic sourcing raises the whole project's cost by more than 25 percent, after public comment. Have the certification ready before the specification asks for it. Watch waiver notices: they are public, they name products, and they tell you where a competitor could not comply. For supply chains. The month-to-month swing in a single input (asphalt from plus 45 to plus 16 percent, diesel from plus 44 to plus 78) is the risk a fixed quote absorbs. Shorten validity windows, index the volatile lines, and know which of your inputs sit under a 50 percent tariff and which of your customers are working on federally funded projects with domestic-content rules. In power, lead time is the constraint before price; the utilities' five-year capital plans are filed with regulators and can be read. For private equity. Infrastructure has the longest backlog of any construction sector and it is shrinking year over year, with the pressure on firms under about $50 million of revenue that have no data center work. That is a consolidation signal. Water and power capital programs are documented to the dollar, decided in public and multi-year, which makes them underwritable from the record. Under 8.9 percent input inflation and 82 percent craft-hiring difficulty, the margin in a portfolio company is in its estimating, its contract terms and its change-order discipline, all of which live in the systems the company already runs and none of which are read together today. ### Method Federal statistics are cited to their agency release and date. Industry figures are cited to the association that published them and the month of the survey. Capveon corpus figures are counts of documents read as of September 2026, rounded, and are described as records rather than projects because the same job appears in several document types. Dollar figures from different record types are never summed. Readings are the authors' and are separated from the figures they read. Corrections go to hello@capveon.ai and are noted at the top of the piece when made. Cite as: Capveon Research, The State of American Infrastructure, Fall 2026, capveon.ai/report. ### Sources - U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Construction Spending, July 2026, September 1, 2026: https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/current/ - Mass Transit, Surface transportation programs extended to December 2026, September 2026: https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/article/55403068/surface-transportation-programs-extended-to-december-2026 - AASHTO Journal, House Passes Senate CR to Extend Federal Gov't Funding, September 2026: https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/house-passes-senate-cr-to-extend-federal-govt-funding/ - Congress.gov, H.R. 8870, BUILD America 250 Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8870 - Eno Center for Transportation, House Curtailing September Schedule, September 2026: https://enotrans.org/article/house-curtailing-september-schedule-likely-killing-chance-of-enacting-surface-reauthorization-this-year/ - Eno Center for Transportation, CBO Says House Surface Bill Needs $150B GF Transfer Through 2031, 2026: https://enotrans.org/article/cbo-says-house-surface-bill-needs-150b-gf-transfer-through-2031/ - Congressional Research Service, Surface Transportation Reauthorization: Federal Highway Programs (R48845), 2026: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R48845.html - GAO-26-108434, Funding Status: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, 2026: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108434 - EPA Office of Inspector General, IIJA Progress Report, Year Four, May 27, 2026: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-05/_epaoig_20260527-26-n-0033_odat-iija-progress-report-year-4_cert.pdf - EPA, 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment: https://www.epa.gov/dwsrf/epas-7th-drinking-water-infrastructure-needs-survey-and-assessment - EPA, 2025 Update to the 7th DWINSA (lead service lines), November 2025: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-11/fact-sheet-2025-7th-dwinsa-update.pdf - EPA, Clean Watersheds Needs Survey, 2022 results: https://www.epa.gov/cwns - Congressional Research Service, FY2026 Appropriations for EPA Water Infrastructure Programs (IF13177), 2026: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13177 - EPA, Fiscal Year 2026 Allotments for the SRF Provisions of the IIJA and Base Program Funding, April 2026: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2026-04/fiscal-year-2026-allotments-for-the-state-revolving-fund-provisions-of-the-infrastructure-investment-and-jobs-act-and-base-program-funding-memo.pdf - Environmental Policy Innovation Center, SRF Earmarks Reduce Set-Aside Funds For All States, August 25, 2026: https://www.policyinnovation.org/insights/srf-earmarks-reduce-set-aside-funds-for-all-states-fy2023-fy2026 - Edison Electric Institute, Electric Companies to Invest $1.4T, 2026: https://www.electricperspectives.com/capital-expenditures-grid-investment/ - PowerLines, Utility Capital Expenditure Report, April 2026: https://powerlines.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/0413_PowerLines-CapEx-Report.pdf - AGC, Construction Input Costs Climb 8.9% Between August 2025 and August 2026, September 10, 2026: https://www.agc.org/news/2026/09/10/construction-input-costs-climb-89-between-august-2025-and-august-2026-association-survey-finds-war - AGC, Construction Input Costs Climb 7.1 Percent Between July 2025 and July 2026, August 13, 2026: https://www.agc.org/news/2026/08/13/construction-input-costs-climb-71-percent-between-july-2025-and-july-2026-impacts-war-and-tariffs - ABC, Construction Materials Prices Jump Again in August, September 10, 2026: https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abc-construction-materials-prices-jump-again-in-august - AGC and Sage, Dampened Expectations: The 2026 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook, January 8, 2026: https://www.agc.org/news/2026/01/08/contractors-have-dampened-expectations-2026-apart-data-centers-and-power-projects-amid-worries-about - ABC, Construction Backlog Indicator, August 2026, September 15, 2026: https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abc-construction-backlog-indicator-rises-contractor-_3 - ABC, Construction Backlog Indicator Plummets in July, August 11, 2026: https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abcs-construction-backlog-indicator-plummets-in-july - Bond Buyer, Muni market on track for another record year of issuance, August 17, 2026: https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/muni-market-on-track-for-another-record-year-of-issuance - Bond Buyer, Revised muni issuance projections skew toward record $600B, 2026: https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/revised-muni-issuance-projections-skew-toward-record-600b - AllianceBernstein, The Week in Muniland, August 24, 2026: https://www.alliancebernstein.com/content/dam/global/insights/insights-external-pdf/2026/muniland/08-24-26-the-week-in-muniland.pdf - ASCE, 2025 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, March 25, 2025: https://infrastructurereportcard.org/ - 2 CFR Part 184, Buy America Preferences for Infrastructure Projects: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-I/part-184 - Capveon, public infrastructure data: what Capveon reads: https://capveon.ai/data --- ## Build America, Buy America: what changes for a manufacturer when the project is federally funded https://capveon.ai/research/build-america-buy-america-for-manufacturers. Published 2026-09-21. Every SRF loan, every formula highway dollar and every infrastructure-law grant carries a domestic-content rule. Here is what it requires, product by product, how waivers work, and where the public record tells you who could not comply. The Build America, Buy America Act is sections 70901 through 70927 of the 2021 infrastructure law. It says that no federal financial assistance for an infrastructure project may be obligated unless all of the iron, steel, manufactured products and construction materials used in the project are produced in the United States. It applies to grants and loans, not only to direct federal purchases, which is what makes it different from the Buy America rules that came before it: a city building a treatment plant with a state revolving fund loan is covered. The Office of Management and Budget's rule at 2 CFR Part 184, and its guidance memorandum M-24-02 from October 2023, define the three product classes and the standard each must meet. ### The three classes Iron or steel products. Every manufacturing process, from the initial melting stage through the application of coatings, must occur in the United States. A product is iron or steel if it is made predominantly of iron or steel, meaning the iron and steel content exceeds 50 percent of the total cost of all its components. Manufactured products. The product must be manufactured in the United States, and the cost of its components that are mined, produced or manufactured in the United States must be greater than 55 percent of the total cost of all components, unless a stricter standard already applies under another law. Component costs are worked out under section 184.5 of the rule. Construction materials. All manufacturing processes for the material must take place in the United States. The rule lists the covered materials and defines what all manufacturing processes means for each. A product is classified once, into one of the three classes, and in general the classification is made at the point where it is incorporated into the project. That matters for assemblies: a pump skid is one thing at the worksite, not a collection of castings, motors and controls each judged separately. ### How waivers work An agency may waive the preference in three cases: applying it would be inconsistent with the public interest; the product is not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of satisfactory quality (nonavailability); or including domestic product would increase the cost of the overall infrastructure project by more than 25 percent (unreasonable cost). The 25 percent test is against the whole project, not the line item. A request must be in writing, with the product, its cost, its country of origin, its PSC and NAICS codes, and a description of the market research done to avoid the waiver, including whether any compliant bids were received. Every proposed waiver is published for public comment of at least 15 days and reviewed by the Made in America Office before it is final. Agencies are told to target waivers to specific products and projects rather than issue them broadly. ### Where it bites Water first. Both state revolving funds carry the requirement, so do the 1,163 congressionally directed water projects funded in FY2026, and so does the $15 billion in lead service line replacement money. A manufacturer of pipe, valves, meters, pumps, instrumentation or treatment equipment selling into a public water system in 2026 should assume the project is covered until shown otherwise, and the specification will ask for a certification. Highways carry FHWA's own long-standing Buy America for steel and iron, which is stricter in places; BABA sits alongside it. Transit, rail, broadband and the energy programs each have agency-specific guidance and, in some cases, program waivers that have been published and can be read. ### What to do about it Have the certification written before the specification asks. For a manufactured product, that means a component cost accounting that shows the 55 percent, kept current as sourcing changes. For iron and steel, it means mill certifications through coating. Read the waiver notices. They are public, they name the product class and often the product, and they say why domestic supply was found insufficient. A nonavailability waiver in your category is a list of specifications your competitor could not meet, and an owner who had to ask for one is an owner who would rather not ask again. Capveon reads the intended use plans, the appropriations project lists and the specifications where these requirements appear, and attaches the funding source to the project record, so a manufacturer knows a project is federally funded, and therefore covered, before the specification is written. ### Sources - 2 CFR Part 184, Buy America Preferences for Infrastructure Projects: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-I/part-184 - OMB Memorandum M-24-02, Implementation Guidance on Application of Buy America Preference in Federal Financial Assistance Programs for Infrastructure, October 25, 2023: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/M-24-02-Buy-America-Implementation-Guidance-Update.pdf - FHWA, Q&As for the Build America, Buy America Act and 2 CFR Parts 184 and 200: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/contracts/pdfs/QAs_for_BABA_POST_October_23_Before_March_20_Doc3.pdf - Congressional Research Service, FY2026 Appropriations for EPA Water Infrastructure Programs (IF13177), 2026: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13177 --- ## Basis of design: how manufacturers get written into specs, and out of them https://capveon.ai/research/basis-of-design-how-manufacturers-get-specified. Published 2026-08-11. Specified revenue is the cheapest revenue a manufacturer has. It is won during design and lost in addenda. When an engineer designs a treatment plant or a transmission main, they select a basis of design for major equipment and materials: a specific product whose performance the design assumes. The specification is then written around it. Other manufacturers may be permitted through “or approved equal” language, or excluded through requirements only one product meets. This decision is usually made between thirty and ninety percent design, by a person whose name is in a public design award, months before the specification is published. ### The three states of a specification section Named. Your product is the basis of design or a listed acceptable manufacturer. Protect it: addenda can remove names. Competitor named. Another manufacturer is named. Read the performance criteria and the substitution provisions. If or-equal language is present, there is a path. If the section requires a proprietary test or dimension, there is not, unless the engineer changes it before bid. Nobody named. The section describes performance and names no one. This is the most valuable state and the least visible, because searching a PDF for your name finds nothing. Reading the criteria against your catalog does. ### Where it is lost Addenda. A late addendum can strike or-equal language, add a named manufacturer or tighten a criterion. Addenda are short, published under deadline pressure, and rarely reread by sales teams. Version drift. Between sixty and ninety percent, sections change. A product named at sixty can be gone at ninety without anyone outside the design team noticing. ### What a manufacturer's morning should look like Three lists: where you are named, where a competitor is named, and where the section describes what you make and names no one. For each, the engineer of record and the phase, so you know whether it can still change. That is the output Capveon produces from the specifications in a territory, continuously. --- ## State revolving funds: the funding signal most pursuit teams ignore https://capveon.ai/research/state-revolving-funds-explained. Published 2026-07-29. Clean Water and Drinking Water SRF intended use plans list, by name, the projects a state expects to finance. They are published every year and read by almost no one in sales. Each state administers a Clean Water State Revolving Fund and a Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, capitalized by federal grants and repayments, and lends the money to public owners for water and wastewater projects at below-market rates. To do so, each state publishes an annual intended use plan: a ranked list of projects it expects to fund, with the borrower, the project description, the requested amount, and a priority score. It is, in effect, a state-level pipeline of funded water work, published in advance. ### Why it matters Funding is the step that converts a plan into a commitment. A project on an intended use plan has an owner who has applied, a scope that has been described, and a state that has ranked it. Design procurement typically follows within a year. SRF-financed projects also carry federal requirements, including domestic-preference rules for iron, steel and manufactured goods. For manufacturers, knowing a project is SRF-funded changes the competitive field before the specification exists. ### How to use it Read your states' plans when they publish and when they are amended. Match borrower names to your account list. Note the requested amounts and the project descriptions, which often name the treatment process or the asset class. Then follow the project into the owner's CIP and agenda, where the design award will appear. Capveon reads all fifty states' intended use plans as one of its public sources, so a funded project is one more fact attached to the owner and project records a customer already has.