Opportunities for Funding

The purpose of this notice is to solicit applications for Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grants. Funds for the fiscal year (FY) 2024 SS4A grant program are to be awarded on a competitive basis to support planning and demonstration activities, as well as projects and strategies to prevent death and serious injury on roads and streets involving all roadway users, including pedestrians; bicyclists; public transportation, personal conveyance, and micro mobility users; motorists; and commercial vehicle operators.

Applicants must submit their applications via Valid Eval at https://usg.valideval.com/teams/usdot_ss4a_2024_implementation/signup for Implementation Grant applicants, and https://usg.valideval.com/teams/usdot_ss4a_2024_planning_demo/signup for Planning and Demonstration Grants. Do not submit your applications through Grants.Gov.

Planning and Demonstration Grant applicants have three deadlines:

•Thursday, April 4, 2024, 5:00 PM (EDT)

•Thursday, May 16, 2024, 5:00 PM (EDT)

•Thursday, August 29, 2024, 5:00 PM (EDT)

Implementation Grant applications must be submitted by 5:00 PM (EDT) on Thursday, May 16, 2024. Late applications will not be accepted unless there is a technical issue directly caused by the online submission proposal system Valid Eval.

The purpose of this NOFO is to solicit applications for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI Program) established under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” or “BIL”). In addition, funds under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program 10 percent set-aside (NEVI 10), also established by BIL, will also be awarded under this NOFO. Funding program sources, Fiscal Years (FY), and amounts available for award under this NOFO can be found in the NOFO. This NOFO also announces FHWA’s intention to make additional awards for applications submitted under FY 2022/2023 CFI Round 1 NOFO (693JJ323NF00004) issued March 14, 2023.

Webinars to share information about the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the CFI Program will be held on the following dates. Webinars are open to the public and registration is required.

Webinar 1: Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Grant NOFO Overview
Thursday, June 6, 2024, 2:00 - 3:00pm ET

Link to REGISTER:
https://usdot.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_ByQ85zQeTMm9XOOg8BsLXw#/r…

Webinar 2: CFI NOFO Overview: Reconsideration of Round 1 Applications
Tuesday, June 11, 2024, at 1:00- 1:30pm ET

Link to REGISTER:
https://usdot.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_V3EBs_qJTpGfNGd60MsDug#/r…

Research and Development funded under this Funding Opportunity Announcement will support the Department’s Clean Fuels & Products Shots initiative, which was established to support the national goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 by developing the sustainable feedstocks and conversion technologies necessary to produce crucial fuels, materials, and carbon-based products that are better for the environment than current petroleum-derived components. It aims to meet projected 2050 net-zero emissions demands for 100 percent of aviation fuel; 50 percent of maritime, rail, and off-road fuel; and 50 percent of carbon-based chemicals by using sustainable carbon resources.

This FOA aligns with DOE’s Office of Resource Sustainability’s Methane Emissions Mitigation and Quantification Program to minimize emissions of methane during production, processing, and transportation across the oil and natural gas industry, with the goal of eliminating methane emissions from carbon-based fuel supply chains by 2030. Effective methane emissions mitigation strategies are dependent upon accurate quantification of both intentional and fugitive emissions from all elements across the natural gas infrastructure, including low producing oil and gas wells. Therefore, there is a continual need to maintain a state-of-the-industry understanding methane emissions mitigation opportunities and operation performance, through collection of empirical data, across oil and natural gas production and delivery regions of the United States. This is to maximize the value of these efforts to the public with the goals of reducing GHG emissions and improving environmental health and engagement of the affected public, (largely in disadvantaged or frontline communities).

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO). The mission of AMMTO is: “We inspire people and drive innovation to transform materials and manufacturing for America's energy future.” This is in alignment with AMMTO’s vision for the future – a globally competitive U.S. manufacturing sector that accelerates the adoption of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies in support of a clean, decarbonized economy.
To realize a clean, decarbonized economy, we must drive innovation to transform resources, materials, and manufacturing for energy applications. The U.S. ramp up of production of technologies that are needed for this energy transition will require new materials, new manufacturing processes, and new circular materials flows.
The modernization of manufacturing can help bring these innovations on-line at the needed scale and quality faster. Among the most important trends to impact the manufacturing sector is the drive toward digitalization, which is the process of employing digital technologies and information to transform the manufacturing enterprise system and business operations across the total production lifecycle. Smart manufacturing provides a systemic approach for the digital transformation of manufacturing that holds great promise to significantly improve productivity, efficiency, safety, security, and sustainability of U.S. manufacturing and energy systems.
While there has been significant support of digitization innovation, the manufacturing sector has been relatively slow to adopt digital technologies. This is problematic as digital transformation—through its improvements in cost, quality, productivity, time to market, efficiency, safety, security, and sustainability—holds great promise to transform how we manufacture products and materials for our energy future.
Smart manufacturing refers to the suite of platform technologies that directly support the digital transformation of the manufacturing enterprise across the entire production lifecycle, which includes design, process, production, supply network, and enterprise levels. Platform technologies are manufacturing technologies that can be applied to manufacture multiple products. The digital transformation of manufacturing through smart manufacturing platform technologies would promote the development of cyberphysical systems (CPS) for manufacturing. A vision for CPS for manufacturing is the development of modular, interconnected systems that combine physical processes, computational resources, and networked communication to create a highly automated, efficient, and flexible manufacturing environment. In such systems, physical components (e.g., machinery, robots, sensors) would be interconnected with software and data networks, enabling real-time monitoring, control, and optimization of manufacturing processes. This would enable a host of significant capabilities including real-time data processing and feedback, advanced automation and control, enhanced flexibility and adaptability, and improved efficiency and quality.

The Forest Service is seeking proposals to support Tribal access to emerging private markets for forest resilience or climate mitigation.

The Forest Service is seeking proposals to support the participation of underserved landowners and landowners owning less than 2,500 acres in emerging private markets for climate mitigation or forest resilience.

The Environmental Protection Agency is soliciting research to address the knowledge gaps associated with the extent and variability of water quality impacted by wastewater effluent, the potential associations between levels of de facto reuse and human health risk, and the interventions needed to mitigate the impacts of de facto reuse.

Every Federal agency with an extramural research and development (R&D) budget over $100 million is required by law to have a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the SBIR
program provides one way it can directly award R&D funding to small businesses. The goal of EPA’s SBIR Program is to support small businesses in the commercialization of innovative technologies that help support EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment (www.epa.gov/sbir). EPA is especially interested in broadening participation in the program and encourages firms new to the program to consider applying. Each agency implements the program in a phased manner that follows the technology development continuum: research, development, demonstration, commercialization, and utilization. Generally, there are two phases: the first is for proof of concept, and the second is intended to move the technology as far as possible toward full-scale commercialization.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS or the Agency), a Rural Development (RD) agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), announces the acceptance of applications for Broadband Technical Assistance (BTA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. Broadband Technical Assistance provides competitive cooperative agreement funding to eligible entities to receive or deliver broadband technical assistance and training that promotes the expansion of broadband. Program funds must be used to support broadband technical assistance activities that promote the expansion of broadband into rural areas. Examples of broadband technical assistance projects may include conducting feasibility studies, completing network designs, and developing broadband financial assistance applications.

The Agency encourages applicants to consider projects that will advance the following key priorities.

Assisting rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and through improved infrastructure;
Ensuring all rural residents have equitable access to RD programs and benefits from RD funded projects; and
Reducing climate pollution and increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.

All applicants should carefully review and prepare their applications according to instructions in the BTA Application Guide and program resources. This Application Guide and program resources can be found on the BTA website at: https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/telecommunications-programs/b…. Additionally, program requirements can be found in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) available in the Federal Register at https://federalregister.gov/d/2024-13691