CPRG General Competition NOFO Explanation of Correction 2023 12 12.pdf

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) TITLE: Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program: Implementation Grants General Competition ACTION: Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) Amendment No. 2

FUNDING OPPORTUNITY NUMBER: EPA-R-OAR-CPRGI-23-07

Assistance Listing No: 66.046 DATE: December 12, 2023

SUMMARY: This Notice makes amendments to the above referenced funding opportunity to update information about entities eligible to apply for the grant; the requirements for coalition applications and Memoranda of Agreement; preferred files and filename formats; adjustments to evaluation criteria 6; and clarification regarding Global Warming Potential (GWP) values to use. This Notice also amends the referenced funding opportunity to provide a checklist containing all required and optional application elements and important details regarding their inclusion in the application.

Specifically, amendments are made on the following pages:

Pages 18-19. Table 2 and the paragraph on page 19 are edited to reflect that any municipal entity that is not a city, town, borough, county, parish, or district must provide documented proof that the state or territory in which it is located considers the entity to be a public body created by or pursuant to state law, and that it is accountable to municipal or state units of government. Similarly, state entities other than state agencies, departments, and other executive branch-level offices must provide documentation that the state or territory in which it is located considers the entity to be a public body created by or pursuant to state law.

Page 20. The paragraph is edited to reflect that a coalition’s Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is not required by the application deadline, but the lead applicant should plan to submit the MOA by July 1, 2024 to CPRG@epa.gov. The lead applicant must include in their application a signed letter of intent from each coalition member stating the member’s intent to sign the

MOA.

Page 22. Threshold eligibility criterion 6 is edited to remove the requirement to include the MOA with a coalition application and add the requirement that coalition applications include letters of intent from each applicant participating in the coalition.

Page 23. Threshold eligibility criterion 8 is edited by striking “disregard” and adding “reject” such that it now reads, “If the applicant does not respond to EPA within two business days of being contacted, EPA will review the last application(s) submitted and will reject all others.”

Page 25: EPA has updated the link to Grants.gov Registration website

Pages 28-30. Application Materials and Project Narrative, Instructions, Format, and Content are edited to include file and filename formats for each document included in the Application Materials, the associated forms in Grants.gov, and clarify which documents are required and which are optional documents. This list adds “letters of intent” as required for coalition applications and removes the requirement to provide a Memorandum of Agreement with the application.

Page 30. A sentence was added to “Type of Application,” clarifying that coalitions must only be comprised of members that provide the letters of intent

Page 31. In Section 1a “Description of GHG Reduction Measures,” the following sentence was added regarding expectations for coalition applications:

• [A coalition application] should also affirmatively declare that the lead applicant will submit an MOA signed by all coalition members by July 1, 2024, or provide an alternative date and justification if they will not be able to meet the July 1st date.

Page 40. In Section 6a “Programmatic Capability and Past Performance,” edits clarify that applicants may list “non-federal” grants in addition to federal grants. In Section 6b, the clause “information from EPA files” was struck and “agency files” was inserted in its place.

Page 49. The clause reading “identified in the coalition’s MOA” was struck from the following sentence: “All members of the coalition identified in the coalition’s MOA must be listed as subrecipients, except the eligible applicant that will be the recipient of the grant (the lead applicant.”

Page 51. Evaluation criteria 1a was edited adding the following clause regarding expectations for coalition applications:

• [In the case of a coalition application…], affirmatively declares that the lead applicant will submit an MOA signed by all coalition members by July 1, 2024, or provides an alternative date and justification if they will not be able to meet the July 1st date.

Page 54. Adds “or non-federal” to evaluation criteria 6a.

Page 54. Corrects a typo in 6c that previously read “…staff knowledge, and resources or ability of obtain them…” to “…staff knowledge, and resources or ability to obtain them…”

Page 56. In Section VI.A, the following sentences were added:

• “The lead applicant for a coalition must submit an MOA signed by all members of the coalition. The lead applicant for a coalition should plan to submit a signed MOA by July 1, 2024. Failure to submit a timely MOA may impact EPA’s ability to award the grant.

See Appendix E for further guidance on the MOA.”

Page 64 and 65. Two paragraphs are edited to clarify that applicants should use Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the 2013 IPCC AR5 Fifth Assessment Report.

Page 68-70. Appendix D is edited to clarify the application checklist that lists each application element, whether the element is required or optional, each element page limit (if applicable), each element file format, and recommended filename for each element (if applicable).

Page 71. Appendix E is edited to clarify that the Memorandum of Agreement is not due at the time of application but that a MOA signed by all members of a coalition must be provided to EPA before EPA will award any grant. Coalitions should plan on submitting their MOAs to EPA at CPRG@epa.gov by July 1, 2024. Failure to submit the MOA in a timely manner may impact EPA’s ability to award the grant. Also, in the bulleted list of elements that should be included in an MOA, the following bullet is edited as follows (underlined text as addition; strikethrough as struck):

• Provide a statement that the lead applicant will be accountable to EPA and accepts full responsibility for the performance of the coalition and will be accountable to EPA for effectively carrying out the full scope of work and the proper financial management of the grant.

mailto:CPRG@epa.gov