Dear CAGTC Members,
On January 13, USDOT published the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the FY20 round of the INFRA grant program. A press release by USDOT can be found here. The full NOFO, to be posted in the Federal Register soon, can be found here.
Availability of Funds
The NOFO makes available $906 million in FY20 funds for INFRA awards. Additionally, USDOT notes that up to $150 million in prior year authorizations may be used for this year’s grant awards as well. An aggregate of $500 million was set as the maximum amount of funds available for non-highway projects for fiscal years 2016-2020. Of this amount, approximately $158 million remains available. As a reminder, grade crossing and grade separation projects do not count toward the limit for freight rail, port, and intermodal projects. For multimodal projects, only the non-highway portions will be counted toward this cap.
Award Specifications
As in past years, 10% of total INFRA funding is reserved for small projects (award size of at least $5 million) and 90% will go toward large projects (award size of at least $25 million). At least 25% of funds must be awarded to projects in rural areas.
Changes Compared to the FY19 NOFO
- USDOT has added more detailed guidelines regarding the requirements applications must meet to qualify as a large project.
- Under Merit Criterion #1: Support for National or Regional Economic Vitality, the NOFO now specifies for freight projects that “the application should include estimates of the volume and share of freight (trucks, rail carloads, TEUs, tonnage, or other relevant measure) that travels through the project area and identify the sources for those estimates.” As part of its application review process, USDOT will assign each project a “level of confidence” for this criterion based on their benefit costs ratio and net present value. Language in the NOFO has been added to state that “the Department anticipates awarding some INFRA funding to projects which primarily serve freight and goods movement to advance the objective of supporting national and regional economic vitality.”
- Consistent with USDOT’s new Rural Opportunities to Use Transportation for Economic Success (ROUTES) Initiative, USDOT will consider how a project addresses challenges specific to rural areas.
More analysis to come!
The www.Grants.gov portal to submit INFRA grant applications will open on January 15 and applications will be due by February 25, 2020.
Thank you,
Cecile
Cecile Entleitner
Manager, Member Communications & Policy
Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors
1625 K Street NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
tradecorridors.org
(202) 828-9100