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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 171 / Wednesday, September 8, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
address those barriers. The final rule does not add the word significant because priority will necessarily be significant, given that this is the only criterion granted priority.
A Tribal organization commenter stated that OIED should waive the requirement for program funds be used to provide physical workplace due to the COVID19 pandemic and to support applicant use of IBIP funds to provide incubator services to Native businesses that cannot access the incubators physical location due to remoteness, pandemic restrictions, and other barriers identified by Tribes and Tribal applicants.
Response: The requirement for the incubator to provide physical space is statutory, so it cannot be waived. See 25
U.S.C. 5803b1B, c1E.
A Tribe stated that, in conducting the site evaluation, OIED should refrain from imposing requirements for dedicated office space for each business and instead allow flexibility for coworking space or hotel style offices to allow the incubator to serve the largest number of participants.
Response: The incubator must be able to offer physical space to its participating businesses, but there is flexibility in how the incubator delivers services to the businesses.
One commenter stated that only applicants with existing workspace can apply but that OIED should allow funding to be used to construct and remodel space for small businesses.
Response: The regulation provides that the applicant does not have to be in possession of the proposed site at the time of the application. See 1187.11f and 1187.12.
D. Comments on Subpart D Grant Awards One commenter noted that 1187.30
provides that grant funds will be in annual installments but may be more frequently as long as not more than quarterly, and noted that in their experience an annual disbursement is preferable.
Response: OIED intends to make annual disbursements unless otherwise requested by the applicant, as stated in the rule.

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E. Comments on Subpart E Grant Term and Conditions 1. Renewals A commenter suggested that the regulation should measure an incubators performance as compared with other small businesses across the country and outside the IBIP to ensure the incubators are providing enough resources before renewing the grant.

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Response: The regulation at 1187.41a2 provides that OIED will measure the performance of the awardees business incubator, as compared to the performance of other business incubators receiving grants under the IBIP, because this is a statutory requirement. See 25 U.S.C.
5803d4.
A Tribe recommended OIED also assess, in determining whether to renew, whether the incubator model continues to be beneficial to the Tribe and to the businesses.
Response: OIED will conduct annual evaluations to measure successful outcomes of the grant based on the milestones and outcomes for the project the incubator included in their application. See 1187.50. OIED will consider the results of the annual evaluation in determining whether to renew a grant award. See 1187.41a1.
A commenter stated that the regulation should include benchmarks to measure incubators success and suggested imposing additional requirements such as requiring incubators to invest in community cohesion, leverage their development to secure funding from State and local governments, reallocate a portion of the grant money toward investments with return equity, and make increased visibility in public and private sectors and goal to attract potential investors.
Response: Applicants will be requested to provide the milestones and outcomes of their project demonstrating to the Secretary the successful outcomes of the grant.
2. Use of Grant Funds A Tribe recommended that an allowable use of grant funds be for staffing purposes.
Response: Use of grant funds may include staffing. See 25 U.S.C.
5803e2D. Applicants will describe their costs within their proposed budget.
A commenter welcomed the flexibility of allowing grant funds to be used for appropriate uses typically associated with business incubators and suggested acceptable uses of grant funds should include revolving loan funds, job creation, and technology commercialization, among other uses.
Response: The applicant will define in the proposal how the grant funds will be used and what services and approaches it will take.
3. Waiver of Requirement for NonFederal Contribution One Tribe suggested eliminating the requirement for non-Federal
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contributions and one stated that the waiver authority must be construed broadly because of the impact on Tribes of the COVID19 pandemic causing significant economic losses. A Tribal organization also requested OIED
consider a broader waiver of the nonFederal contribution requirement and another commenter supported providing a blanket waiver for the first round of awarded IBIP grants.
Response: OIED will continue to require the non-Federal contribution as required in the statute; however, OIED
recognizes the difficulties Tribes have encountered during the pandemic and waiver decisions will be considered in accordance with its waiver authority based on the criteria in 1187.43.
A commenter encouraged OIED to allow applicants to request waivers in advance of the grant application deadline for IBIP.
Response: The statutory criteria for waiving the non-Federal contribution include that the incubator will provide quality business incubation services and that one or more reservation communities to be served are unlikely to receive similar servicesthese are both determinations that OIED cannot make until it reviews the full application. See 25 U.S.C. 5803d3B.
Two commenters recommended clarifying that applicants requests for waivers will not negatively impact evaluation of their grant applications.
Response: OIED understands the difficulty in obtaining non-Federal contributions and will clarify in the NOFO whether non-Federal contributions will be included in the ranking criteria.
4. Minimum Requirements Awardees Must Meet A Tribe stated that Tribes should have broad discretion in structuring the competitive process by which participants are selected to participate in the incubator.
Response: The applicant defines what their competitive process will be under 1187.44a2.
A Tribe stated that, in the requirement for applicants to provide entrepreneurship and business skills training and education to Native businesses and Native entrepreneurs, the list of training and education topics in the curriculum should be introduced by including but not limited to and list an overview of legal issues including choice of entity and legal structures, and an overview of Federal small business lending and contracting programs.
Response: The applicant defines in their application what their curriculum
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