[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 2, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 25814-25816]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 06-4104]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
[Docket No.: 00061680-6107-12]
NOAA Climate Program for FY 2007
AGENCY: Climate Program Office, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research,
Nastional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of
Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of funding availability.
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SUMMARY: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Climate Program publishes this notice to announce the availability of
funding for proposals that address the NOAA Climate Program's overall
goal, which is to better understand climate variability and change to
enhance society's ability to plan and respond. The NOAA Climate Program
represents a contribution to national and international programs
designed to improve our ability to observe, understand, predict, and
respond to changes in the global environment. The Program builds on
NOAA's mission requirements and long-standing capabilities in global
change research and prediction. The Program is a key contributing
element of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) that is
coordinated by the interagency Committee on Environmental and Natural
Resources (CENR). NOAA's Climate Program is designed to complement
other agencies' contributions to that national effort.
DATES:
Submission Dates and Times (for ALL Competitions)
Letter of Intent Due Date: May 30, 2006. by 5 p.m. eastern time.
Application Due Date: July 25, 2006 by 5 p.m. eastern time.
Anticipated Award Date: May 1, 2007
ADDRESSES: Letters of Intent are encouraged to be submitted by e-mail
to
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the identified NOAA program element's program manager.
NOAA encourages the submission of applications through Grants.gov.
If the applicant does not have access to electronic submission, please
mail applications to: CPO Grants Manager, Diane Brown, NOAA/CPO, 1100
Wayne Avenue, Suite 1210, Silver Spring, MD 20910-5603, Facsimile
transmissions of full proposals will not be accepted. To apply for this
NOAA federal funding opportunity, please go to http://www.grants.gov
and use the following funding opportunity OAR-CPO-2007-2000636.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Please visit the CPO Web site for
further information http://www.climate.noaa.gov. All technical
questions should be addressed to the identified NOAA program element's
program manager. For Administrative questions: Please contact the CPO
Grants Manager, Diane Brown, NOAA/CPO, 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1210,
Silver Spring, MD 20910-5603, by phone at 301-427-2357, or e-mail:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Applicants must comply with all requirements
contained in the Full Funding Opportunity announcement available on
www.Grants.gov or from CPO Grants Manager (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
CONTACT section above).
Electronic Access
Applicants should read the full text of the Full Funding
Opportunity announcement available at http://www.grants.gov. It can
also be accessed at the CPO Web site, http://www.climate.noaa.gov, or
the central NOAA site, http://www.grants.gov/.ofa.noaa.gov/~amd/
SOLINDEX.HTML.
Program Information
The overall goal of the NOAA Climate Program is to better
understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability
to plan and respond. The Program aims to improve scientific
understanding of the earth's past and present climate variability and
change to improve climate forecast skill, increase the credibility of
climate change projections, and the use of climate information for
policy and decision makers and resource managers. The broad objective
of NOAA's Climate Program is to establish a national information
service based on reliable assessments and quantitative predictions of
changing global climate. Once established, this service will help NOAA
provide high-quality predictions and assessments to the public and
private sectors, other federal and state agencies, and the
international community. The near-term objective is to provide reliable
predictions of global climate changes, both natural and human-induced,
and their associated societal impacts on time scales ranging from
seasons to a century or more. The ten competitions that are accepting
proposals are: The Atmospheric Composition and Climate Program; the
Climate Change Data and Detection Program; the Climate Dynamics and
Experimental Prediction Program; the Climate Prediction Program for the
Americas; the Climate Variability and Predictability Program; the
Global Carbon Cycle Program; the Regional Integrated Sciences and
Assessments Program; the Sector Applications and Research Program; the
Scientific Data Stewardship Program; and the Transition of Research
Applications to Climate Services Program A full description of the
scope of the proposal for each of the ten competitions is contained in
the full funding opportunity announcement.
Funding Availability
Please be advised that actual funding levels will depend upon the
final FY 2007 budget appropriations. In FY 2006, approximately $6M in
first year funding was available for 54 new awards; similar funds and
number of awards are anticipated in FY 2007. Total Anticipated Federal
Funding for FY 2007 is $6M in first year funding for 40-60 number of
awards. Federal Funding for FY 2008 may be used in part to fund some
awards submitted under this competition. Current plans assume that 100%
of the total resources provided through this announcement will support
extramural efforts, particularly those involving the broad academic
community. Past or current grantees funded under this announcement are
eligible to apply for a new award that builds on previous activities or
areas of research not covered in the previous award. Current grantees
should not request supplementary funding for ongoing research through
this announcement. We anticipate that the annual cost of most funded
projects will fall between $50,000 and $200,000 per year. The exact
amount of funds that may be awarded will be determined in pre-award
negotiations between the applicant and NOAA representatives. Neither
NOAA nor the Department of Commerce is responsible for proposal
preparation costs if this program is not funded for whatever reason.
Publication of this announcement does not oblige NOAA to award any
specific project or to obligate any available funds.
Statutory Authority: 49 U.S.C. 44720(b), 33 U.S.C. 883d, 15
U.S.C. 2904, 15 U.S.C. 2931-2934. Catalog of Federal Domestic
Assistance (CFDA) Number: CFDA No. 11.431, Climate and Atmospheric
Research.
Eligibility
Eligible applicants are institutions of higher education, other
nonprofits, commercial organizations, international organizations, and
State, local, and Indian tribal governments. Federal agencies or
institutions are not eligible to receive Federal assistance under this
notice.
Cost Sharing Requirements
Cost Sharing is only required in one program element competition
which is the Transition of Research Applications to Climate Services
(TRACS) where the Cost Share Percentage must be at least 5% of the
total costs. The other nine Competitions have no cost sharing
requirement.
Letters of Intent (LOI)
The purpose of the LOI process is to provide information to
potential applicants on the relevance of their proposed project to the
Climate program and the likelihood of it being funded in advance of
preparing a full proposal. While it is in the best interest of the
applicants and their institutions to submit an LOI, it is not a
requirement; applicants who do not submit an LOI are still allowed to
submit a full proposal. Full proposals will be encouraged only for LOIs
deemed relevant.
A panel of program managers will review each LOI to determine
whether the LOI is responsive to the program goals as advertised in
this notice and will provide an e-mail or letter response.
Selection Procedures
NOAA published an omnibus notice announcing the availability of
grant funds for projects for Fiscal Year 2006 in the Federal Register
on June 30, 2005 (70 FR 37766), and its second on December 20, 2005 (70
FR 76253). The evaluation criteria and selection procedures contained
in those notices are applicable to this solicitation. For a copy of
these omnibus notices, please go to: http://www.grants.gov or http://www.ago.noaa.gov/grants/funding.shtml.
Limitation of Liability
Funding for the programs listed in this notice are contingent upon
the availability of FY 2006 appropriations. In no event will NOAA or
the Department of Commerce be responsible for proposal preparation
costs if these
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programs fail to receive funding or are cancelled because of other
agency priorities. Publication of this announcement does not oblige
NOAA to award any specific project or to obligate any available funds.
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
NOAA must analyze the potential environmental impacts, as required
by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), for applicant projects
or proposals that are seeking NOAA federal funding opportunities.
Detailed information on NOAA compliance with NEPA can be found at the
following NOAA NEPA Web site: http://www.nepa.noaa.gov/, including our
NOAA Administrative Order 216-6 for NEPA, http://www.nepa.noaa.gov/NA0216_6_TOC.pdf, and the Council on Environmental Quality
implementation regulations, http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/regs/ceq/toc_ceq.htm. Consequently, as part of an applicant's package, and under
their description of their program activities, applicants are required
to provide detailed information on the activities to be conducted,
locations, sites, species and habitat to be affected, possible
construction activities, and any environmental concerns that may exist
(e.g., the use and disposal of hazardous or toxic chemicals,
introduction of non-indigenous species, impacts to endangered and
threatened species, aquaculture projects, and impacts to coral reef
systems). In addition to providing specific information that will serve
as the basis for any required impact analyses, applicants may also be
requested to assist NOAA in drafting of an environmental assessment, if
NOAA determines an assessment is required. Applicants will also be
required to cooperate with NOAA in identifying and implementing
feasible measures to reduce or avoid any identified adverse
environmental impacts of their proposal. The failure to do so shall be
grounds for the denial of not selecting an application. In some caes if
additional information is required after an application is selected,
funds can be withheld by the Grants Officer under a special award
condition requiring the recipient to submit additional environmental
compliance information sufficient to enable NOAA to make an assessment
on any impacts that a project may have on the environment.
The Department of Commerce Pre-Award Notification Requirements for
Grants and Cooperative Agreements
The Department of Commerce Pre-Award Notification Requirements for
Grants and Cooperative Agreements contained in the Federal Register
notice of December 30, 2004 (69 FR 78389) are applicable to this
solicitation.
Paperwork Reduction Act
This document contains collection-of-information requirements
subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). The use of Standard Forms
424 and 424A, 424B, SF-LLL, and CD-346 have been approved by OMB under
the respective control numbers 0348-0043, 0348-0044, 0348-0040, 0348-
0046, and 0605-0001. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no
person is required to respond to, nor shall any person be subject to a
penalty for failure to comply with, a collection of information subject
to the requirements of the PRA unless that collection of information
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
Executive Order 12866
This notice has been determined to be not significant for purposes
of Executive Order 12866.
Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)
It has been determined that this notice does not contain policies
with Federalism implications as that term is defined in Executive Order
13132.
Intergovernmental Review
Applications under this program are not subject to Executive Order
12372, Intergovernmental Review of federal programs.
Administrative Procedure Act/Regulatory Flexibility Act
Prior notice and an opportunity for public comments are not
required by the Administrative Procedure Act or any other law for this
rule concerning grants, benefits, and contracts (5 U.S.C. 553(a).
Because notice and opportunity for comment are not required pursuant to
5 U.S.C. 553 or any other law, the analytical requirements of the
Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) are inapplicable.
Therefore, a regulatory flexibility analysis has not been prepared.
Mark Brown,
Chief, Financial Officer, OAR, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
[FR Doc. 06-4104 Filed 5-1-06; 8:45am]
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