Securing Federal Grant Assets For US Ports

Like many ports, the Alaskan Port of Homer faces getting old infrastructure and capital wants nicely past the native funding capability. The port is a key hyperlink within the provide chain for 47 distant, rural, deprived or Alaska Native communities served by Homer, making proposed port infrastructure upgrades vital for transport statewide in addition to for the area people.

Enter the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act, often known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation. This unprecedented inflow of federal funds has supplied ports in america a big alternative to make much-needed enhancements. From coast to coast, at inland ports and intermodal services in between, ports are benefiting from funding to plan and assemble extra resilient services and infrastructure, cut back emissions, and improve intermodal connectivity.

But it surely’s not so simple as filling out an software type. Although federal funding ranges in IIJA have elevated, competitors for grant awards is intense, with demand far exceeding accessible funds. Transportation infrastructure homeowners/operators who’re profitable at acquiring federal funding know that strategic planning should start nicely earlier than a discover of funding alternative is launched. Proactive infrastructure homeowners and operators spend money on grasp plans and are ready to justify the necessity for his or her mission earlier than the NOFO is printed and a grant software is ready.

The Port of Homer has positioned itself strategically utilizing a methodical course of to align capital initiatives to particular federal grant applications and produce essentially the most aggressive grant software doable:

1. Assess a mission’s readiness, eligibility, and advantage
2. Align it with a grant program
3. Put money into mission growth
4. Put together a standout software

Readiness, Eligibility, Advantage
Infrastructure homeowners ought to start with the important thing paperwork that set up readiness, equivalent to a grasp plan or capital enchancment program. When evaluating upcoming grant alternatives, port officers can examine the necessities to the initiatives recognized within the plan and determine the most effective grants to pursue. A grasp plan additionally helps the proprietor take a programmatic strategy — organizing initiatives by want and grouping related initiatives to maximise accessible funding.

Lengthy earlier than the NOFO is launched, an proprietor ought to start the pre-positioning course of — a deliberate strategy to prepared initiatives for grant software. This begins with evaluating initiatives recognized within the grasp plan to match them to accessible grants, then prioritizing initiatives based mostly on readiness, eligibility and advantage.

Venture steps that needs to be full earlier than the NOFO is launched embody engineering, price estimation, environmental clearance, and different mission growth actions to advance mission readiness; making ready an preliminary benefit-cost evaluation, a frequent requirement for a lot of grant applications; lining up political assist; and registering for grant info on the web sites Grants.gov and Sam.gov.

This type of pre-positioning work can improve grant award success, determine funding streams and permit for better emphasis on efficiency measurement.

REM Device: Choosing a grant program
For bigger ports with a number of initiatives within the planning levels, HDR has created a Readiness, Eligibility and Advantage software to assist homeowners/operators assess and prioritize initiatives for federal grant funding. The REM software evaluates a wide range of inputs to evaluate the competitiveness of particular person initiatives in a capital program based mostly on federal funding necessities. The outcomes assist an proprietor prioritize which initiatives to use for grants now, and which to spend money on extra mission growth actions to higher put together the mission for consideration in a future yr based mostly on particular grant program necessities.

Aligning a mission to a grant program
An array of grant alternatives is obtainable to ports and intermodal services, and profitable candidates will rigorously select the suitable program. The HDR infrastructure finance crew has created a system to check grant alternatives and determine the most effective applications to fulfill a mission’s wants. This assists ports in pursuing functions more likely to have a better likelihood of award.

Think about the Port Infrastructure Improvement Program. Eligible initiatives for this program should do the next:

• Enhance the security, effectivity or reliability of the motion of products, operational enhancements (together with resiliency), or environmental and emissions mitigation
• Present shore energy to cruise, ferry and cargo vessels

Grant funds cowl the planning, environmental evaluate and ultimate design of eligible initiatives.

Earlier than making use of for PIDP, or any grant program, contemplate: Does the mission match the standards? What are the proof factors, each qualitative and quantitative, that objectively display the mission suits?

If a mission doesn’t match into these classes, don’t shoehorn it. Discover a grant program that aligns with the mission’s targets. Different applications to contemplate are RAISE, INFRA or Mega. (See under for a listing of grant applications to contemplate.)

Additionally contemplate what levels of mission growth are funded by a grant. If a mission is within the strategy planning stage, however a grant solely funds design or development, it’s not the suitable grant. It’s finest for ports to submit just one mission per grant program annually to maximise possibilities for achievement. A benefit-cost evaluation is essential, because it exhibits the deserves of the mission.

Put money into mission growth
If a mission isn’t on the proper stage of growth for a grant, another choice is to spend money on mission growth to assist with grant positioning.

Many federal grant applications require a mission to have accomplished a certain quantity of planning. For instance, some require planning to be full. Others wish to see environmental work or design. Port leaders should know what phases are coated by the grant, what must be full and by when it needs to be achieved.

Sturdy grant functions
A grant software tells the story of why a neighborhood wants and deserves federal funding for its mission. Ports can collect knowledge to indicate the significance of their freight motion to the native or regional financial system. This builds the case by way of the benefit-cost evaluation. The BCA is essential in demonstrating the necessity for the mission.

A powerful grant software additionally contains:

• An entire description of the mission: targets, objective and want, implementation
• Clear alignment with the grant program’s advantage standards
• A well-articulated assertion of labor with particular scope, schedule, and funds
• A transparent, cohesive, and full narrative
• A BCA demonstrating constructive public financial and societal outcomes (ratio better than 1.0) that totally meets grant necessities, when relevant/required
• Matching state, native, or non-public money contributions that exceed the proposed federal grant program necessities — ideally together with private-sector contributions
• Sturdy, particular assist for the mission from a number of non-public companions, senators or congressional representatives and from the governor’s workplace

Ports round america are eligible for funding that may assist them modernize their services and energize their regional economies. Reap the benefits of this once-in-a-generation funding alternative by following HDR’s grant-winning strategy.

Case research: Georgia Ports Authority
With HDR’s help, the Georgia Ports Authority acquired 4 grants between 2017 and 2023, totaling $140 million to assist $570 million in mission prices. This contains one FASTLANE grant, one INFRA grant and two Port Infrastructure Improvement Program grants. With this funding the port authority has been in a position to end key initiatives together with reconfiguration of the Port of Savannah’s on-dock intermodal container switch services.

The ports authority discovered success by tailoring its initiatives to the necessities of the grants applications. For instance, for the Colonel’s Island Terminal wanted to extend capability for cargo. Our crew together with the port authority assessed a number of grant applications and chosen the PIDP as the most effective match. Nevertheless, the mission didn’t match the necessities. So we proposed tailoring the mission to higher swimsuit the benchmarks in this system. The port authority added a livability enchancment by eradicating some at-grade rail crossings on native arterial streets. This significant improve to the area people elevated the fee but additionally tremendously elevated the mission’s likeliness of acquiring grant funding.

One other key space to take a look at is sustainability and resiliency. Many grant applications embody these areas as a requirement. House owners ought to contemplate whether or not their mission can embody a component of decreasing emissions or reducing waste streams, relying on the grant program chosen.

Case research: Port of Homer
The State of Alaska transferred the Homer Port to town in 1999, leaving the area people answerable for intensive deferred upkeep. Some floats had been already 10 years past design life on the time. State upkeep funds weren’t made accessible upon switch, and town assumed possession with out alternative reserves, which below finest practices would have been accruing at 2.5 to five% of the asset’s worth all through its meant life cycle. The floats at the moment are 37 to 60 years outdated, nicely previous their designed service lifetime of 25 years.

To pursue funding to deal with these wants, HDR labored with the Metropolis of Homer to develop a complete multi-year grant technique that enhances the port’s capital enchancment plan. HDR and Homer workers reviewed paperwork associated to mission scope and advantages, funding sources, mission and metropolis monetary plans, neighborhood planning, and public engagement to determine mission traits and funding plans. The crew matched capital enchancment plan initiatives with federal discretionary grants and different funding alternatives, developed funding suggestions and actionable work plans for every mission and group of initiatives, supplied a schedule of software/funding actions by yr, and documented and introduced findings.

The group made suggestions based mostly on mission particular analyses mixed with HDR’s data of federal grant applications, evaluation of latest NOFOs, fiscal yr 2022 award bulletins together with HDR-supported wins, and discussions with federal company workers.

These insights had been used to evaluate the readiness of initiatives and the presence of advantage parts within the initiatives, with the purpose of figuring out the optimum alignment between initiatives and accessible grant alternatives. From there, the Metropolis of Homer workers prioritized initiatives for numerous grant functions based mostly on accessible workload and political priorities to the neighborhood.

This thorough strategy gave town the instruments it wanted to be purposeful in addressing the port’s capital wants. The town has already submitted one Port Infrastructure Improvement Program grant and is positioned for different prospects to seize funding.

Grant alternatives to contemplate

• PIDP – Port Infrastructure Improvement Program:  Administered by the Maritime Administration, this federal grant program offers funding for port and intermodal infrastructure initiatives, together with the development and rehabilitation of marine terminals.  
• Discount of Truck Emissions at Port Amenities Program: This program goals to scale back truck emissions at port services. FHWA will coordinate and supply funding to check, consider and deploy initiatives that cut back port-related emissions from idling vehicles, together with by means of the development of port electrification and enhancements in effectivity, specializing in port operations, together with heavy-duty business autos, and different associated initiatives.
• RAISE – Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Fairness:  This U.S. Division of Transportation program offers funding for transportation initiatives which have a big regional or nationwide financial influence and features a class for port infrastructure initiatives. It prioritizes initiatives with advantages within the areas of security, sustainability, high quality of life, mobility/connectivity, financial competitiveness, state of fine restore, partnership and collaboration, and innovation.
• PROTECT – Selling Resilient Operations for Transformative, Environment friendly, and Price-saving Transportation Program: PROTECT is a aggressive discretionary grant program by means of the Federal Freeway Administration. It funds initiatives that make transportation infrastructure extra resilient to pure hazards and the consequences of local weather change, together with extreme storms, flooding, drought, levee and dam failures, wildfire, rockslides, mudslides, sea degree rise, excessive temperatures, and earthquakes.
• Port Safety Grant Program: This grant program helps the event and implementation of safety measures at vital infrastructure websites, together with marine terminals. It might embody surveillance cameras, new management techniques, implementation of cyber safety protocols, or superior emergency response applied sciences. To be eligible for Port Safety funding, candidates should display that their proposed safety measures will improve the security and safety of their facility.
• INFRA – Infrastructure for Rebuilding America: This federal grant program offers funding for infrastructure of nationwide significance, which might embody enhancements to container wharves. Eligibility necessities for INFRA funding embody demonstrating that the mission has important nationwide or regional financial advantages and that it addresses a vital transportation want.
• Mega – Nationwide Infrastructure Venture Help Program: This program helps giant, advanced initiatives which can be troublesome to fund by different means and more likely to generate nationwide or regional financial, mobility or security advantages.
• FEMA BRIC – Constructing Resilient Infrastructure and Communities: Goals to categorically shift the federal focus away from reactive catastrophe spending towards research-supported, proactive funding in neighborhood resilience. Tasks should cut back or eradicate threat from pure hazards by means of infrastructure initiatives, coverage growth or workforce enhancements.
• FRA CRISI – Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Security Enhancements: Invests in initiatives to enhance railroad security, effectivity and reliability; mitigate congestion at intercity passenger and freight rail chokepoints to assist extra environment friendly journey and items motion; improve multimodal connections; and result in new or considerably improved intercity passenger rail transportation corridors.
• USDOT SMART – Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation: Supplies grants to conduct demonstration initiatives targeted on superior good metropolis neighborhood applied sciences and techniques in a wide range of communities to enhance transportation effectivity and security.