The EPA’s Brownfields Program provides funds to empower states, Tribal Nations, communities, and nonprofit organizations to prevent, inventory, assess, clean up, and reuse brownfield sites. This funding opportunity will award assessment grants to develop inventories of brownfield sites, prioritize sites, conduct community involvement activities, conduct planning, conduct site assessments, develop site-specific cleanup plans, and develop reuse plans related to brownfield sites. A portion of the Assessment Grant funding must be used to conduct site assessments.

This funding opportunity provides funding for States and Tribes to develop inventories of brownfield sites, prioritize sites, conduct community involvement activities, conduct planning, conduct site assessments, develop site-specific cleanup plans, and develop reuse plans related to brownfield sites. Applicants may request funding up to $2,000,000 to address sites contaminated by hazardous substances (i.e., sites with potential contamination of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants) and/or petroleum (i.e., sites with potential petroleum contamination) throughout their jurisdiction. Recipients will be required to assess sites (a minimum of 10) throughout their geographic boundary(ies). All sites selected during the period of performance (i.e., sites that were not identified in the original workplan) must be located in an underserved and/or disadvantaged community.

Community-wide Assessment Grants are for communities that are beginning to address their brownfield challenges, as well as for communities that have ongoing efforts to bring sites into productive reuse. This funding opportunity will provide funding for developing inventories of brownfield sites, prioritizing sites, conducting community involvement activities, conducting planning, conducting site assessments, developing site-specific cleanup plans, and developing reuse plans related to brownfield sites. A portion of the assessment grant funding must be used to conduct site assessments.

The purpose of this program is to encourage or enhance tribal engagement with or participation in existing Regional Ocean Partnerships (ROPs) around the country. Proposals submitted in response to this announcement must:

• support tribal activities aligned with ROP priorities, including identification of ocean and coastal priorities;
• provide opportunities for tribes to work together to define intertribal ocean and coastal management priorities and identify alignment and intersection with ROP priorities;
• enhance or create capacity for tribes to engage with and in ROP activities (e.g., webinars, meetings, workshops);
• support the development of partnerships or engagement between a tribal government and a ROP in the management of ocean and coastal resources; and/or
• increase consideration and inclusion of tribal information and knowledge (as appropriate) in regional data portals, enhance tribes’ ability to access data developed by ROPs, or to inform which data and tools are available in regional data portals.

DOE announced the availability of up to $63 million to enable state and local governments to expand battery recycling and modernize American manufacturing by making cutting edge technologies like advanced sensors and modeling more accessible to small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs). This funding opportunity advances next-generation tools and resources to achieve the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious goal of a net-zero economy by 2050 and will help revitalize and strengthen America’s global leadership in manufacturing.

Through the two Areas of Interest (AOIs), the FOA will provide approximately $63 million in support of programs by state or local government entities with the following purposes:

• AOI 1: State Manufacturing Leadership Program (SMLP)
• AOI 2: State and Local Battery Collection, Recycling, and Reprocessing Program

The RCP Program aims to advance and support reconnection of communities divided by transportation infrastructure – with a priority on helping disadvantaged communities improve access to daily needs (jobs, schools, healthcare, grocery stores, and recreation). Funds for the fiscal years (FY) 2024, 2025, and 2026 RCP grant program are to be awarded on a competitive basis to support planning and capital construction activities that aim to restore community connectivity through the removal, retrofit, mitigation or replacement of highways, roadways, or other infrastructure facilities that create barriers to mobility, access or economic development.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced up to $16 million in federal funding for large-scale conversion of carbon dioxide emissions into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products. With funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, projects will develop the sustainable feedstocks and conversion technologies necessary to produce crucial fuels, materials, and other carbon-based products that are better for the environment than current petroleum-derived equivalents. This funding opportunity announcement has two topic areas:

• Engineering-Scale Testing of Electrochemical Systems for the Conversion CO2 into Value-Added Products
• Feasibility Studies for Retrofitting of Refineries and Petrochemical Facilities for Carbon Conversion

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has opened the second-round funding opportunity for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) demonstrations authorized under President Biden’s landmark Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The legislation authorizes DOE to support competitively selected pilot projects that collectively demonstrate EGS in different geologic settings, using a variety of development techniques and well orientations. The currently open FOA seeks projects in Topic Area 4 only: demonstrating EGS at a well-characterized site in the eastern United States with potential for near-term electricity or thermal power production.

The SMART program was established to provide grants to eligible public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety. SMART is a two-stage program. Stage 1(up to $2,000,000 dollars and 18 months) grants are open for any eligible entity to apply. Recipients of Stage 1 grants will be eligible to expand their projects through Stage 2 grants (up to $15,000,000 and 36 months). Applicants must have received a Stage 1 grant to apply to Stage 2.

DOE announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) for up to $200 million for transmission projects to connect remote and isolated microgrids to existing infrastructure corridors in Alaska, Hawaii, and the territories of the United States. One of three unique funding mechanisms within the TFP, the public-private partnerships developed through this RFP will be designed to address the unique electric grid configurations and challenges faced by residents in these remote and often isolated communities. Strategic interconnection of existing microgrids to each other and to a larger operating transmission system will enhance grid reliability and resilience and expand access to clean, diverse, and more affordable energy in these areas.

The funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will support front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for regional CO2 transport networks to safely transport captured CO2 from key sources to centralized locations. The projects will focus on carbon transport costs, transport network configurations, and technical and commercial considerations that support broad efforts to develop and deploy carbon capture, conversion, and storage at commercial scale.

This funding opportunity will provide future growth grants under DOE’s Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (CIFIA) program, made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Future growth grants are intended to provide financial assistance for designing, developing, and building CO₂ transport systems whose capacity exceeds the CO₂ volumes currently under commercial contract. Building this excess capacity up front will make it available for future carbon capture and direct air capture facilities as they are developed and for additional CO₂ storage and/or conversion sites as they come into operation.