SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5339(b)) authorizes FTA to make competitive grants for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program. Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5339(c)) authorizes FTA to make competitive grants for the Low-No Program.

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5338(a)(2)(N)) authorized $383,544,933 in FY 2023 funds for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, appropriated an additional $90,000,000 for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program in addition to the authorized amount noted above. After the oversight takedown of $4,099,509, the total funding available is $469,445,424 for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program. FTA is also making additional prior year(s) funding available for this round, bringing the total available funding to $473,075,256.

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5338(a)(2)(N)) authorized $73,056,178 in FY 2023 funds for the Low or No Emission Grant Program; an additional $1,029,000,000 appropriated under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law 117-58) after accounting for the authorized takedown for administrative and oversight expenses and the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Pub. L. 117-328), appropriated an additional $49,625,000 for the Low or No Emission Grant Program after accounting for the authorized oversight takedown in addition to the authorized amount noted above. Further, due to less funding being requested than funding available during the FY 2022 competition for low-emission projects, $69,668,939 of FY 2022 Low-No Program funds remained available for award, of which $69,192,987 is reserved for low-emission projects as required by statute. After the oversight takedown and transfer to the OIG, and the addition of prior year(s) funding, a grand total of $1,221,466,973 was made available for the Low-No program in FY 2023.

On January 27, 2023, FTA published a joint Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) (88 FR 5400) announcing the availability of approximately $469 million in FY 2023 Buses and Bus Facilities Program funds and approximately $1.22 billion in Low-No funds. Consistent with the NOFO, which stated that FTA “may award additional funding that is made available to the programs prior to the announcement of project selections,” FTA is electing to add prior year(s) unallocated funds for Buses and Bus Facilities Program and Low-No to this funding opportunity. These funds will provide financial assistance to states and eligible public agencies to replace, rehabilitate, purchase, or lease buses, vans, and related equipment, and for capital projects to rehabilitate, purchase, construct, or lease bus-related facilities. For the Low-No Program, projects must be directly related to the low or no-emission vehicles within the fleet. In response to the NOFO, FTA received 475 eligible project proposals totaling approximately $8.7 billion in Federal ( printed page 43004) funds. Project proposals were evaluated based on each applicant's responsiveness to the program evaluation criteria outlined in the NOFO.

Based on the criteria in the NOFO, FTA is funding 83 projects, as shown in Table 1, for a total of $1,216,941,397 for the Low-No Program and 47 projects, as shown in Table 2, for a total of $472,922,707 for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program. A minimum of 15 percent of the amounts made available for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program are set aside for projects located in rural areas, which is reflected in FTA's selections. A statutory cap of 10 percent for any one applicant in the Buses and Bus Facilities Program is also reflected. A minimum of 25 percent of the amounts made available for the Low-No Program are set aside for projects related to the acquisition of low-emission buses or bus facilities other than zero-emission vehicles and related facilities, which is reflected as well. Recipients selected for competitive funding are required to work with their FTA Regional Office to submit a grant application in FTA's Transit Award Management System (TrAMS) for the projects identified in the attached tables to quickly obligate funds. Grant applications must include only eligible activities applied for in the original project application. Funds must be used consistent with the competitive proposal and for the eligible capital purposes described in the NOFO.

In cases where the allocation amount is less than the proposer's total requested amount, recipients are required to fund the scalable project option as described in the application. If the award amount does not correspond to the scalable option, the recipient should work with the Regional Office to reduce scope or scale the project such that a complete phase or project is accomplished. Recipients may also provide additional local funds to complete a proposed project. A discretionary project identification number has been assigned to each project for tracking purposes and must be used in the TrAMS application.

Selected projects are eligible to incur costs under pre-award authority no earlier than the date projects were publicly announced. Pre-award authority does not guarantee that project expenses incurred prior to the award of a grant will be eligible for reimbursement, as eligibility for reimbursement is contingent upon other requirements, such as planning and environmental requirements, having been met. For more about FTA's policy on pre-award authority, please see the current FTA Apportionments, Allocations, and Program Information at https://www.transit.dot.gov/​funding/​apportionments. Post-award reporting requirements include submission of Federal Financial Reports and Milestone Progress Reports in TrAMS (see FTA Circular 5010.1E). Recipients must comply with all applicable Federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, FTA circulars, and other Federal requirements in carrying out the project supported by the FTA grant. FTA emphasizes that recipients must follow all third-party procurement requirements set forth in Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5325(a)) and described in the FTA Third Party Contracting Guidance Circular (FTA Circular 4220.1). Funds allocated in this announcement must be obligated in a grant by September 30, 2026.

Technical Review and Evaluation Summary: The FTA assessed all project proposals submitted under the FY 2023 Buses and Bus Facilities Program and the Low-No Program competition according to the following evaluation criteria. The specific metrics for each criterion were described in the January 27, 2023, NOFO:

1. Demonstration of Need

2. Demonstration of Benefits

3. Planning/Local Prioritization

4. Local Financial Commitment

5. Project Implementation Strategy

6. Technical, Legal, and Financial Capacity

For each project, a technical review panel assigned a rating of Highly Recommended, Recommended, or Not Recommended for each of the six criteria. The technical review panel then assigned an overall rating of Highly Recommended, Recommended, Not Recommended, or Ineligible to the project proposal.

Projects were assigned a final overall rating of Highly Recommended if they were rated Highly Recommended in at least four categories and did not receive a Not Recommended rating. Projects were assigned a final overall rating of Recommended if the projects had three or more Recommended ratings and no Not Recommended ratings. Projects were assigned a rating of Not Recommended if they received a Not Recommended rating in any criteria. A summary of the final overall ratings for all 475 eligible project proposals is shown in the Overall Project Ratings table below.

As outlined in the NOFO, FTA made the final selections based on the technical ratings as well as geographic diversity, diversity in the size of transit systems receiving funding, additional considerations/administration priorities including climate change, the creation of good-paying jobs, an application's zero-emission fleet transition plan supporting a full fleet transition, procurement methods to reduce customization, and the Justice40 initiative.

As further outlined in the NOFO, in some cases, due to funding limitations, proposals that were selected for funding received less than the amount originally requested.

( printed page 43005) ( printed page 43007)

88 FR 43003