October 2024 Local Infrastructure Hub Insider

Digest Introduction

Welcome to the Local Infrastructure Hub Insider! 

This monthly digest is your guide to the key information you need to submit competitive grant applications that fully leverage Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act funding and deliver results for your residents. 

Grant Winners Survey: Help us help cities implement their grants. The Hub is developing new resources for 2025, including an Implementation Bootcamp. Your feedback on the challenges you face or may face is invaluable as we shape these resources.

Upcoming Events

Don’t miss these upcoming events:

🗓 11/12 – Still Need to Obligate ARPA Funds? Join us to discuss best practices for obligating remaining State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds by the December 31, 2024 deadline. 

🗓 11/19 – Celebrating Three Years of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: The Local Infrastructure Hub has helped cities win over $3 billion in infrastructure funds. Join us as we highlight the tremendous impact that federal infrastructure dollars have had on cities across the country. 

Grant Application Trainings

💡 Opportunity Spotlight: Register for a Grant Application Training!

Cities with a population of 150,000 and below are eligible to receive tailored grant support on the following topics: 

• Developing Clean Energy Projects
• Safe Streets and Roads for All
• Clean Water State Revolving Fund
• Grant Implementation, Compliance and Management

The National Clean Investment Fund

The National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) is a $14 billion program that provides low-interest financing to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy, including energy generation and storage projects, net-zero emissions buildings, zero-emissions transportation projects, and projects that will benefit disadvantaged communities. 

Webinar Recording and Summary: NCIF lenders joined cities to discuss access points for interested cities and eligible uses for funding. Watch the recording or read the summary for best practices for leveraging this funding to advance clean energy. 

Frequently Asked Questions: Use this resource to learn more about NCIF opportunities. 

Updated Uniform Grants Guidance

Earlier this year, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revised its Uniform Grants Guidance to help cities maximize their use of federal grants and ensure that investments in data and evidence contribute to program improvements and community outcomes. The updated guidance gives greater clarity about eligible expenses, including that cities can use federal funding to improve data systems, conduct evaluations, and offer compensation to those participating in community engagement activities.

Webinar Recording and Summary: Watch this webinar to learn more about recent updates to federal grants notices and eligible award uses. Read the summary for key insights from this session and for links to actionable tools. 

Maximize Federal Grants: This explainer details how to leverage federal funding to enhance your city’s culture of data and evidence. 

Check out strategies for building data and evaluation capacity and advancing evidence-based spending. 

Featured Resources

Getting to Yes on Your Grant Agreement: Here are eight strategies that you can use to streamline your grant agreement process. 

Reconnecting Communities in Syracuse: Learn more about how city leaders in Syracuse, NY are leveraging infrastructure funding to connect a predominantly Black neighborhood to economic opportunity. 

IRA Clean Energy Storytelling Program: Share your stories about how the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax incentives are lowering energy costs for families, bringing back and strengthening American manufacturing, and creating good-paying jobs across the country.

Request for Information: By November 12, submit a public comment on medium- and heavy-duty electric charging technologies and infrastructure needs. 

Grant Opportunities

Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants Program: Due November 21, 2024

• The details: $2 billion to fund community-driven projects that address climate challenges and reduce pollution while strengthening communities through thoughtful implementation.
• Winning Strategies: Learn how to submit a competitive application. 
• City of Tucson worked with Amistades, Inc. to secure this grant to address heat mitigation in the city’s underserved neighborhoods 

🆕 Low Carbon Transportation Materials Grants Program: Due November 25, 2024 

• The details: $2 billion to fund low carbon materials that create less pollution by reducing the levels of embodied greenhouse gas emissions, including concrete (and cement), glass, asphalt mix and steel. 

🆕 State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program: Due December 3, 2024

• The details: $279.9 million to manage and reduce systemic cyber risk.
• Watch this webinar about regional partnerships for cost-effective procurement of cybersecurity solutions, creative approaches to cybersecurity workforce development and working with state governments to access funds through FEMA’s State and Local Cybersecurity program.  

🆕 National Scenic Byways Program: Due December 16, 2024

• The details: ~$27 million to implement eligible projects on highways designated as National Scenic Byways or All-American Roads (America’s Byways®), State scenic byways, or Indian Tribe scenic byways; and to plan, design, and develop a State or Indian Tribe scenic byway program.  

Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Grants for Communities and Consumer Recycling Education and Outreach Grant Program: Due December 20, 2024

• The details: $58 and $39 million, respectively, to decrease municipal solid waste and household food waste; expand compost markets and sales; and increase recycling and reuse. Education and outreach grants can be used to inform the public about new or existing residential food waste composting programs, including what materials are accepted, how to decrease physical contamination, and information for increasing collection rates.

National Estuarine Research Reserve System Habitat Protection and Restoration Competition: Due January 9, 2025

• The details: $13.5 million for coastal habitat restoration; coastal habitat restoration planning, engineering and design; and coastal land conservation projects.

Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Grant Program: Due January 30, 2025 

• The details: $1.5 billion to improve road safety and ease of movement around communities, make transportation infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, and improve supply chains to keep costs down for consumers. 
• RAISE in Lincoln, NE: The City of Lincoln secured a RAISE construction grant to achieve a decades-long goal of building a downtown mobility hub.

🆕 Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Program: Due February 24, 2025

• The details: $876 million to strengthen surface transportation to be more resilient to natural hazards, including climate change, sea level rise, heat waves, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure. 

Inflation Reduction Act Direct Pay Program: Ongoing

• The details: Tax credits for cities to finance clean energy investments. 
• Project Examples: This report describes eligible uses for direct pay. 

Free EPA Water Technical Assistance: Ongoing

• The details: Application support for projects financed through State Revolving Funds or other EPA-supported funding opportunities, including the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.  

Want to share your winning application with fellow grant seekers? Have a question about a NOFO? Contact Miranda Alamilla at [email protected]. 

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