SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Federal public transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5339(b)) authorizes FTA to make competitive grants for the Bus Competitive 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)(M)) authorized $398,103,239 in FY 2025 funds for the Bus Competitive Program after an oversight takedown. After the addition of available prior year funding, the total available funding for the Bus Program in FY 2025 is $399,330,754.

For FY 2025, $76,512,334 was authorized and appropriated for the FY 2025 Low-No Program, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, Pub. L. 117-58) appropriated an additional $1,029,000,000 after accounting for the authorized takedown for administrative and oversight expenses and the Office of Inspector General (OIG). For FY 2026, $1,029,000,000 is appropriated under the IIJA for the Low-No Program. After the oversight takedown and transfer to the OIG, and the addition of prior year(s) funding, the total available ( printed page 1857) funding for the Low-No Program is $2,140,796,484.

On May 15, 2025, FTA published a joint Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) announcing the availability of approximately $398 million in FY 2025 Bus Competitive Program funds and approximately $1.10 billion in Low-No Program funds (90 FR 20737). 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 allocate a portion of the appropriated FY 2026 Low-No Program funds, as well as available prior year funds for both programs. 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 low or no-emission vehicles. In response to the NOFO, FTA received 479 eligible project proposals requesting approximately $6.8 billion in Federal 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 62 projects, as shown in Table 1, for a total of $397,665,476 for the Bus Competitive Program, and 103 projects, as shown in Table 2, for a total of $1,630,282,606 for the Low-No Program. A minimum of 15 percent of the amount made available for the Bus Competitive Program is 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 Bus Competitive Program is reflected as well. A minimum of 25 percent of the amount made available for the Low-No Program is set aside for projects related to the acquisition of low-emission buses or bus facilities.

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. A discretionary project identification number has been assigned to each project for tracking purposes and must be used in the TrAMS application. Grant applications must include only eligible activities applied for in the original project application.

When the allocated amount is less than the requested amount, recipients must reduce scope or scale the project so that a complete phase or a usable segment of the originally proposed project is implemented. Amounts may be reduced because they were capped or scaled due to more funding being requested than available, ineligible expenses may have been removed from the funded project scope, or funding was allocated for only the low-emission elements of a mixed-emission project. In all such cases where the amount allocated is less than the amount requested, the recipient should work with its Regional Office to reduce the scope appropriately. Recipients may also provide additional local funds to complete a proposed project.

Selected projects are eligible to incur costs under pre-award authority no earlier than November 20, 2025. Pre-award costs are incurred at your own risk, and the announcement that a project was selected does not guarantee that FTA will, in fact, obligate a grant for the funding. FTA is not required to reimburse pre-award costs if you do not receive an obligated grant or if the obligated grant is less than anticipated and is inadequate to cover all pre-award costs. Eligibility for reimbursement is contingent upon planning and environmental requirements having been met, among other factors. 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 5010.1F). 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 4220.1G).

Funds allocated in this announcement must be obligated in a grant by September 30, 2029.

Technical Review and Evaluation Summary: The FTA assessed all project proposals that were submitted under the FY 2025 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 May 2025 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.

FTA also used a streamlined application for tribal applicants requesting less than $1 million in order to reduce the burden of application for tribes with smaller requests and encourage more tribal applications. Such applicants were only required to provide a full response to Demonstration of Need and Local Financial Commitment, and a shortened response to Project Implementation Strategy. Tribes with requests of less than $1 million had to meet statutory requirements, such as attaching a fleet transition plan to zero-emission applications, but did not need to provide responses related to any Administration priorities.

Projects were assigned a final overall rating of Highly Recommended if they were rated Highly Recommended in at least four categories overall, with no Not Recommended ratings. 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 479 eligible project proposals is shown in the table below.

Overall Project Ratings (eligible submissions):

Consistent with 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; vehicle propulsion type; and additional considerations/administration priorities including benefits to Opportunity Zones, intent to use cost-effective vehicle procurements, intent to use terms to strengthen the U.S. vehicle ( printed page 1858) manufacturing industry, benefits to families and communities, and commitment to Buy America domestic preference standards.

91 FR 1856