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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Notices information about project funds will ensure that the Departments expectations for award execution align with any funding restrictions unrelated to the Department, even if an award differs from the applicants request.
v. Merit Criteria This section of the application should demonstrate how the project aligns with the Merit Criteria described in Section E.1 of this notice. The Department encourages applicants to address each criterion or expressly state that the project does not address the criterion.
Applicants are not required to follow a specific format, but the following organization, which addresses each criterion separately, promotes a clear discussion that assists project evaluators. To minimize redundant information in the application, the Department encourages applicants to cross-reference from this section of their application to relevant substantive information in other sections of the application.
The guidance here is about how the applicant should organize their application. Guidance describing how the Department will evaluate projects against the Merit Criteria is in Section E.1 of this notice. Applicants also should review that section before considering how to organize their application.
Criterion 1: Support for National or Regional Economic Vitality This section of the application should describe the anticipated outcomes of the project that support the Economic Vitality criterion described in Section E.1.a of this notice. The applicant should summarize the conclusions of the projects benefit-cost analysis, including estimates of the projects benefit-cost ratio and net benefits. The applicant should also describe economic impacts and other datasupported benefits that are not included in the benefit-cost analysis, such as how their project creates good-paying jobs with the choice to join a union and will support American industry by complying with domestic preference laws without need for a waiver. If you are pursuing innovative project delivery strategies related to economic vitality, such as using project labor agreements to local hiring requirements, include that information in the Innovation section. For the purposes of considering whether the project primarily serves freight and goods movement, the application should include estimates of the volume and share of freight trucks,
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rail carloads, TEUs, tonnage, or other relevant measure that travels through the project area and identify the sources for those estimates.
Consistent with the Departments ROUTES Initiative, the Department encourages applicants to describe how the project would address the unique challenges of rural transportation networks in safety, infrastructure condition, and passenger and freight usage, should the project serve a rural location.
The benefit-cost analysis calculation files should be provided as an appendix to the project narrative, as described in Section D.2.c. of this notice.
Criterion 2: Climate Change and Environmental Justice Impacts This section of the application should demonstrate whether the project has incorporated climate change and environmental justice in terms of a planning and policy or b design components with outcomes that address climate change. To address the planning and policies element of this criterion, the application should describe what specific climate change or environmental justice activities have been completed for this project. The application should state whether a project is incorporated in a climate action plan, whether an equitable development plan has been prepared, and whether tools such as EPAs EJSCREEN have been applied in project planning.6 To address the design components element of this criterion, the application should describe specific and direct ways that the project will mitigate or reduce climate change impacts. This may include a description of how the project encourages modal shift, temporal changes in asset utilization to reduce congestion, or incorporates multimodal infrastructure to reduce vehicle miles traveled, other ways that the project reduces emissions or uses technology to increase energy efficiency, incorporates resiliency measures for disaster preparedness, or recycles and enhances existing idle or dilapidated infrastructure. See Section E.1.a for additional information related to evaluation of Climate Change and Environmental Justice.
Criterion 3: Racial Equity and Barriers to Opportunity This section of the application should include sufficient information to evaluate how the applicant will advance 6 The EJSCREEN tool can be referenced on the EPA site: https ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/.

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the Racial Equity and Barriers to Opportunity program objective. The applicant should indicate which if any planning and policies related to racial equity and barriers to opportunity they are implementing or have implemented, along with the specific project investment details necessary for the Department to evaluate if the investments are being made to either proactively advance racial equity and barriers to opportunity or redress prior inequities and barriers to opportunity.
All project investment costs for the project that are related to racial equity and barriers to opportunity should be summarized here, even if those project costs are ineligible for the INFRA grant.
See Section E.1.a for additional information. Any relevant racial equity and barriers to opportunity related policies, plans and outreach documentation as described in Section E.1.a, should be provided as an appendix to the project narrative.
Criterion 4: Leveraging of Federal Funding The Leveraging Criterion will be assessed according to the methodology described in Section E.1.a., referencing information provided in the applications Grant Funds, Sources and Uses of Project Funds section. Please describe the source of all non-INFRA
funds in the projects financial plan.
Please state the share of non-INFRA
funds coming from Federal funds, including Federal formula funds that may be passed through a State entity.
Please provide evidence that funding is stable, dependable, and will be available to complete the project.
Criterion 5: Potential for Innovation This section of the application should contain sufficient information to evaluate how the project can be transformative in achieving program goals, and includes or enables innovation in: 1 The accelerated deployment of innovative technology, including expanded access to broadband; 2 use of innovative permitting, contracting, and other project delivery practices; and 3
innovative financing. If the project does not address a particular innovation area, the application should state this fact.
Please see Section E.1.a for additional information.
Criterion 6: Performance and Accountability This section of the application should include sufficient information to
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