- Granting Agency: Federal Highway Administration
- Appropriation Amount: $848,000,000
- Grant Amount: $100,000 – $120 million
- Announcement Date: April 21, 2023
- Closing Date: 11:59:59 p.m. E.D.T. on August 18, 2023.
Purpose: PROTECT Discretionary Grant Program, which aims to improve the resilience of the surface transportation system to natural hazards, including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters. This program provides up to $848 million in funding for Resilience Grants through a competitive discretionary grant process. The program seeks to fund projects that address the climate crisis by utilizing innovative and collaborative approaches to risk reduction, including the use of natural infrastructure. The selected projects should be grounded in the best available scientific understanding of climate change risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities and support the continued operation or rapid recovery of crucial local, regional, or national surface transportation facilities.
There are four categories of funding; Planning Grants, Resilience Improvement, Community Resilience and Evacuation Routes, and At-Risk Coastal Infrastructure projects, and throughout this NOFO are collectively referred to as Resilience Grants. The program aims to reduce damage and disruption to the transportation system, improve the safety of the traveling public, and improve equity by addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities that are often the most vulnerable to hazards.
Eligible Expenditures:
Planning Grants; This grant funds planning and design with relation to infrastructure resilience such as developing resilience improvement plans, vulnerability assessments, technical capacity building, and evacuation planning to enhance the ability of transportation assets to withstand natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Resilience Improvement Grants:
This grant funds the construction of projects to enhance the resilience of existing surface transportation assets against natural disasters, weather events, and changing conditions. Eligible activities include resurfacing, rehabilitation, reconstruction, incorporation of natural infrastructure, installation of mitigation measures, and strengthening of systems that remove rainwater. Other eligible activities include seismic retrofits on bridges, installation of scour protection, stabilization of slide areas or slopes, vegetation management, and any other protective features as determined by the Secretary.
Community Resilience and Evacuation Route Grant:
This grant funds projects that improve evacuation routes for emergency events, including restoring or replacing existing routes, protecting them from debris slides, and expanding their capacity. It also covers the installation of communication and transportation infrastructure, counterflow measures, and shoulders to improve safe passage during evacuations.
Eligible Applicants:
For Planning Grants, Resilience Improvement Grants, and Community Resilience and Evacuation Route Grants; 1. A State or political subdivision of a State. (State includes the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) 2. An MPO. 3. A unit of local government. 4. A special purpose district or public authority with a transportation function, including a port authority. 5. An Indian Tribe (as defined in 23 U.S.C. § 207(m)(1)). 6. A Federal land management agency that applies jointly with a State or group of States. 7. A multi-State or multijurisdictional group of entities described in (1) through (6).
For At-Risk Coastal Infrastructure Grants;
A State (including the U.S. Territories Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) in, or bordering on, the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, Long Island Sound, or one or more of the Great Lakes. 2. A political subdivision of a State described in (1.) above. 3. An MPO in a State described in (1.) above. 4. A unit of local government in a State described in (1.) above. 5. A special purpose district or public authority with a transportation function, including a port authority, in a State described in (1.) above. 6. An Indian Tribe in a State described in (1.) above. 7. A Federal land management agency that applies jointly with a State or group of States described in (1.) above. 8. A multi-State or multijurisdictional group of entities described in (1.) through (7.) above.