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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Notices
c. Late Applications Applications received after the deadline will not be considered except in the case of unforeseen technical difficulties outlined in Section D.4.d.
d. Late Application Policy Applicants experiencing technical issues with Grants.gov that are beyond the applicants control must contact INFRAgrants@dot.gov prior to the application deadline with the user name of the registrant and details of the technical issue experienced. The applicant must provide:
1 Details of the technical issue experienced;
2 Screen captures of the technical issues experienced along with corresponding Grants.gov Grant tracking number;
3 The Legal Business Name for the applicant that was provided in the SF
424;
4 The AOR name submitted in the SF424;
5 The DUNS number associated with the application; and 6 The Grants.gov Help Desk Tracking Number.
To ensure a fair competition of limited discretionary funds, the following conditions are not valid reasons to permit late submissions: 1
failure to complete the registration process before the deadline; 2 failure to follow Grants.gov instructions on how to register and apply as posted on its website; 3 failure to follow all the instructions in this notice of funding opportunity; and 4 technical issues experienced with the applicants computer or information technology environment. After the Department reviews all information submitted and contacts the Grants.gov Help Desk to validate reported technical issues, USDOT staff will contact late applicants to approve or deny a request to submit a late application through Grants.gov. If the reported technical issues cannot be validated, late applications will be rejected as untimely.
E. Application Review Information 1. Criteria a. Merit Criteria The Department will consider the extent to which the project addresses the following criteria, which are explained in greater detail below and reflect the key program objectives described in Section A.2: 1 Support for national or regional economic vitality;
2 climate change and environmental justice impacts; 3 racial equity and barriers to opportunity; 4 leveraging of
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Federal funding; 5 potential for innovation; and 6 performance and accountability. The Department is neither weighting these criteria nor requiring that each application address every criterion, but the Department expects that competitive applications will substantively address all six criteria.
Criterion 1: Support for National or Regional Economic Vitality The Department will consider the extent to which a project would support the economic vitality of either the nation or a region. For 2021, the Department is relying on the Benefit Cost Analysis to assess this criterion.
Other factors important to economic vitality, including how a project contributes to the creation of jobs with a choice to join a union, support for American industry through compliance with domestic preference laws, the use of project labor agreements and local hiring requirements, will be considered in other ways. To the extent possible, the Department will rely on quantitative, data-supported analysis to assess how well a project addresses this criterion, including an assessment of the applicant-supplied benefit-cost analysis described in Section D.2.c., The Department will consider estimates of the projects benefit-cost ratio.
Based on the Departments assessment, the Department will group projects into ranges based on their estimated benefit costs ratio BCR and assign a level of confidence associated with each projects assigned BCR. The Department will use these ranges for BCR: Less than 1; 11.5; 1.53; and greater than 3. The confidence levels are high, medium, and low.
Criterion 2: Climate Change and Environmental Justice Impacts The Department encourages applicants to 1 consider climate change and environmental justice in project planning efforts and 2 to incorporate project elements dedicated to mitigating or reducing impacts of climate change, as described in Section A.2.b of this NOFO. The project will be assigned a Climate Change and Environmental Justice rating based on how it addresses these areas.
Applications that incorporate climate change or environmental justice in both planning activities and specific project elements will receive a high rating.
Applications that incorporate climate change or environmental justice in planning activities or project elements, but not both, will receive a medium rating. Applications that address this criterion in neither planning activities
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nor project elements will receive a low rating.
Applicants intending to address the planning portion of the climate change and environmental justice criterion should describe in detail, provide supporting documentation, or otherwise demonstrate how they meet at least one of the options below:
1 A Local/Regional/State Climate Action Plan which results in lower greenhouse gas emissions has been prepared and the project directly supports that Climate Action Plan;
2 A Local/Regional/State Equitable Development Plan has been prepared and the project directly supports that Equitable Development Plan;
3 The project sponsor has used environmental justice tools such as the EJSCREEN to minimize impacts to environmental justice communities https ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/; or 4 A Local/Regional/State Energy Baseline Study has been prepared and the project directly supports that study.
Applicants intending to address the project components portion of the climate change and environmental justice criterion should describe how they meet at least one of the options below:
1 The project supports a modal shift in freight or passenger movement to reduce vehicle miles traveled;
2 The project incorporates electrification infrastructure, zeroemission vehicle infrastructure, or both;
3 The project utilizes one or more demand management strategies to reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, 4 The project supports the installation of electric vehicle charging stations along the NHS;
5 The project promotes energy efficiency, for example through reduction in vessel dwell time or use of cold ironing technology at ports;
6 The project serves the renewable energy supply chain;
7 The project improves disaster preparedness and resiliency;
8 The project supports bringing existing idle or dilapidated infrastructure that is currently causing environmental harm into a state of good repair e.g. brownfield redevelopment;
9 The project supports or incorporates the construction of energyand location-efficient buildings;
10 The project includes new or improved pedestrian/cycling connections or multi-modalism as part of a highway or grade separation project;
or 11 The project proposes recycling of materials, use of materials known to reduce or reverse carbon emissions, or both.

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