Last week, as a result of the federal government shutdown, news outlets reported on a pause in processing project reimbursements for the massive bi-state Hudson Tunnel Gateway Program and New York City’s Second Avenue Subway line. Beyond the political finger-pointing and investigation into the pause’s impact (the billions of dollars already appropriated remain untouched) is the federal Department of Transportation’s publication, also last week, of its interim final rule (“IFR”) Docket No. DOT–OST–2025–0897. Effective October 3, 2025, this IFR removes from its regulations at 49 C.F.R. Parts 23 and 26 race and gender-based presumptions of social and economic disadvantage from DOT’s regulations governing its Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Airport Concession Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) programs. In doing so, it replaces terms like “race-neutral/race-conscious” with “DBE-neutral/DBE-conscious” frameworks, and adds new sections (§§ 23.81 and 26.111) that require each Unified Certification Program (UCP), i.e., each state’s agency that sets the criteria for firms seeking DBE/ACDBE certification, to reevaluate any currently certified DBE, to recertify any DBE that meets the new certification standards, and to decertify any DBE that does not meet the new certification standards or fails to provide additional information required for submission under the new certification standards.