NII Supporting Statement_Revision

INFORMATION COLLECTION

SUPPORTING STATEMENT – PART A

National Infrastructure Investments Grant Program

1. CIRCUMSTANCES THAT MAKE THE COLLECTION NECESSARY.

The National Infrastructure Investments Grant Program (“TIGER II Discretionary Grants”) is a newly authorized program under the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010 (“FY 2010 Appropriations Act”), Title I - Department of Transportation, Office of the Secretary, National Infrastructure Investments, Public Law 111-117, 123 Stat. 3034. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (“OST”) is referring to these grants as “TIGER II Discretionary Grants.” The program authorizes the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) to receive applications and make awards for grant funding in an effort to advance projects that will have a significant impact on the Nation, Metropolitan area or a region. The FY 2010 Appropriations Act directs that the Secretary cannot announce awards for TIGER II Discretionary Grants until September 15, 2010. The Department’s strategic goal for this program is to assist with economic recovery through investment in transportation infrastructure.

The FY 2010 Appropriations Act, enacted on December 16, 2009, requires DOT OST to publish criteria on which to base competition for grants to be awarded under this program no sooner than 60 days after the enactment of the FY 2010 Appropriations Act, which was February 16, 2010 and to receive applications no sooner than 120 days after publishing the criteria (April 26, 2010; FR 75, page 21695).¹ Funding under this Act remains available to DOT only through September 30, 2012.

Given our strong desire to see the TIGER II grant funds contribute to economic recovery, and the need for the Department to meet the deadlines established by Congress, we respectfully request an emergency approval as soon as possible for the July 16, 2010 pre-application and August 23, 2010 final application information collections for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program.

A chronological outline is provided below to assist with understanding the steps DOT has taken to meet the deadlines as prescribed by the Secretary of Transportation and the Congress.

December 16, 2009	President Barack Obama signed the FY 2010 Appropriations Act.
December 16, 2009 - February 17, 2010	The Department proceeded with its implementation of a previously authorized Discretionary Grant Program, known as TIGER, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Implementation of the TIGER grant program included an aggressive deadline requiring the Department to announce awards within one year of enactment. On February 17, 2010, the statutory deadline for making awards, the Secretary of Transportation announced the award of 51 TIGER Discretionary Grant projects totaling $1.5 billion. Programmatic protocol and likely similarity of the applicant pool between the TIGER and TIGER II grant programs necessitated TIGER grants be awarded and administered prior to announcing the availability of TIGER II grant opportunities.
February 18, 2010	As soon as awards were announced for the TIGER Discretionary Grant program, the Department initiated the development of the guidance and criteria for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program, including the program’s Interim Notice of Funding Availability.
March 24, 2010	TIGER II Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number Issued.
April 26, 2010	The Department published an Interim Notice of Funding Availability in the Federal Register. This notice requested comments from the public on the selection criteria and the guidance provided. In addition, the Department requested comments on its intention to conduct a multi-agency evaluation and award process with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD'') for the portion of the TIGER II Discretionary Grants that may be used for planning grants.
May 28, 2010	The Department published the Final Notice of Funding Availability in the Federal Register. The final notice incorporated comments received on the interim notice. The Department received 114 comments on the interim notice of funding availability. See attached comments.
June 23, 2010	Access to pre-application information is made available through the TIGER II website: www.dot.gov/recovery/ost/tigerii.
July 26, 2010	Pre-applications, to facilitate eligibility determinations, will be submitted by applicants interested in applying for TIGER II Discretionary Grants through the TIGER II website: www.dot.gov/recovery/ost/tigerii.
July 30, 2010	The “apply” function will be made available for applicants through Grants.Gov.
August 23, 2010	Final applications will be submitted to www.Grants.Gov no later than August 23, 2010.
August 24, 2010	The Department will receive applications from Grants.Gov to begin the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program Evaluation Process.
September 15, 2010	The FY 2010 Appropriations Act directs that the Secretary not announce awards for TIGER II Discretionary Grants until September 15, 2010.

Given our strong desire to see the TIGER II grant funds contribute to economic recovery, and the need for the Department to meet the deadlines established by Congress, we respectfully request an emergency approval of the information collection for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program.

2. HOW, BY WHOM, AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE INFORMATION IS TO BE USED AND CONSEQUENCES IF THE INFORMATION IS NOT COLLECTED.

The applications collected through the solicitation will be used by OST, and evaluation teams which include technical representatives from other agencies within the Department, to evaluate applications and award grants according to the guidelines and criteria set forth by the FY 2010 Appropriations Act. Pursuant to the FY 2010 Appropriations Act, the announcements of grant awards may not be made before September 15, 2010. The Secretary of Transportation, through testimony to Congress, has stated that he intends to begin announcing awards under the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program shortly thereafter, to help create jobs and stimulate economic activity. While the TIGER II Discretionary Grant program is not a Recovery Act program (as the TIGER Discretionary Grant program was), the Department recognizes that job creation and economic activity remain a top priority for this Administration, and that the type of infrastructure investment facilitated through the TIGER II Discretionary Grant program has a critical role to play in supporting the Administration’s economic efforts.

OST is requesting that OMB grant emergency approval of the proposed Information Collection Request (ICR) related to Funding Availability and Solicitation of Applications for Grants under the National Infrastructure Investments Grant Program. The Department cannot reasonably comply with the normal OMB PRA Clearance procedures because of the time needed to review grant applications, select projects and award funding in accordance with the FY 2010 Appropriations Act, which requires a competitive process. Furthermore, based on our experience with the Recovery Act’s TIGER Discretionary Grant Program, any delay in collecting the information beyond August 23, 2010, will make it less likely that the Department will be able to select meritorious projects and meet the statutory deadline for obligating all TIGER II Discretionary Grant funds, which is September 30, 2012. Even for projects that can obligate funds more quickly, any delay in collecting the information beyond August 23, 2010, makes it more likely that funds will not be obligated in time for the projects to take advantage of the 2011 construction season, which would necessitate a full year of delay before projects could get underway.

3. CONSIDERATION OF IMPROVED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.

Upon approval from OMB, the Department will receive pre-applications via the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program website (www.dot.gov/recovery/ost/tigerii) and final applications through www.Grants.gov. The site includes detailed application instructions and a list with accompanying descriptions of each of the required (designated with a red asterisk *) data elements.   OST proposes to accept pre-applications no later than July 26, 2010 and final applications are due no later than August 23, 2010. Certain agencies within the Department have found that delivery of applications electronically is the most reliable way to collect applications. Also, in order to reduce the burden on applicants, OST indicates in the solicitation that website links to documentation that supports the narrative in the application should be provided, where available, rather than copies of these materials.

4. DESCRIBE EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY DUPLICATION.

The applications will generally be project specific and the information is not available elsewhere. However, to reduce duplication, OST indicated in the solicitation that at the applicant’s discretion, relevant materials provided previously to a Department agency in support of a different Department discretionary program may be referenced and described as unchanged. To the extent referenced, this information need not be resubmitted for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant application.

4. METHODS USED TO MINIMIZE BURDEN ON SMALL BUSINESSES OR OTHER SMALL ENTITIES.

Potential applicants for TIGER II Discretionary Grants include State and local governments, including U.S. territories, tribal governments, transit agencies, port authorities, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other political subdivisions of State or local governments. There are no small business organizations or other small entities that will be impacted by this collection of information.

4. CONSEQUENCES IF INFORMATION WAS NOT COLLECTED OR COLLECTED LESS FREQUENTLY.

OST is requiring the submission of pre-applications no later than July 26, 2010, and final applications no later than August 23, 2010. If the information is not collected the Department will not be able to evaluate and select projects in accordance with the FY 2010 Appropriations Act, which requires a competitive process. Any delay in collecting the information beyond July 16, 2010 will make it more difficult for the Department to select projects and make awards in advance of the September 30, 2012 statutory deadline. The consequences of not collecting the information, or collecting it too late, would be that a substantial amount of funding would become unavailable for expenditure as directed by Congress.

4. SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES THAT REQUIRE THE COLLECTION TO BE CONDUCTED IN A MANNER INCONSISTENT WITH 5 CFR 1320.6.

This solicitation for applications will not require respondents to report information to OST more often than quarterly.

4. EFFORTS TO CONSULT WITH PERSONS OUTSIDE THE AGENCY TO OBTAIN THEIR VIEWS.

An interim Federal Register notice was published on April 26, 2010 (FR /Vol. 75, No. 79, page 21695) announcing the availability of funding and soliciting comments from the public. Since the release of the interim Federal Register notice, 114 comments were submitted to the Docket (DOT-OST-2010-0076). A final notice was published in the Federal Register on June 1, 2010 (FR /Vol. 75, No.104, page 30460). See attached summary of comments.

9. EXPLAIN ANY DECISION TO PROVIDE ANY PAYMENT OR GIFT TO RESPONDENTS.

OST will not provide any payment or gift to respondents, including remuneration of contractors or grantees.

9. DESCRIBE ANY ASSURANCE OF CONFIDENTIALITY PROVIDED RESPONDENTS.

The solicitation requests that applicants use publicly available data or data that can be made public and methodologies that are accepted by industry practice and standards, to the extent possible. If the application includes information that the applicant considers to be a trade secret or confidential commercial or financial information, the solicitation directs the applicant to do the following: (1) note on the front cover that the submission “Contains Confidential Business Information (CBI);” (2) mark each affected page “CBI;” and (3) highlight or otherwise denote the CBI portions. The solicitation states that the Department protects such information from disclosure to the extent allowed under applicable law, and notes that in the event the Department receives a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the information, the Department will follow the procedures described in its FOIA regulations at 49 CFR § 7.17. The solicitation notes that only information that is ultimately determined to be confidential under that procedure will be exempt from disclosure under FOIA.

9. ADDITIONAL JUSTIFICATION FOR QUESTIONS OF A SENSITIVE NATURE.

The solicitation does not request any sensitive or private information.

9. ESTIMATE OF THE HOUR BURDEN OF THE COLLECTION AND ANNUALIZED COST TO RESPONDENTS.

Number of Respondents: 1,500

Estimated Burden per Response: 100 hours

Estimated Annual Burden: 150,000 hours

This program has criteria and requirements that are similar to the TIGER Discretionary Grant Program authorized and implemented pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Therefore, the Department has relevant prior experience on which to base these estimates. Based on this experience, and on the number and type of interested stakeholders that have contacted the Department about the TIGER II Discretionary Grant program, OST anticipates 1,500 applications. OST expects that it will not generally take applicants more than 100 person-hours to assemble individual applications, in part because some of the applicants will have experience preparing applications under the TIGER Discretionary Grant Program. Therefore, the total annual hour burden of this one-time collection of applications is 150,000 hours.

9. ESTIMATE OF TOTAL ANNUAL COST BURDEN TO RESPONDENTS.

As noted above, the estimated total annual hour burden on respondents of this one-time collection of applications is 150,000 hours. Although various personnel are involved in the development of an application, we estimate that the average cost for the services of these personnel is approximately $33 per hour. Therefore, the total annual cost burden to respondents is estimated to be $4,950,000.

9. ESTIMATE OF THE ANNUALIZED COST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

The estimated cost to the Federal government is approximately $1,303,750.  This cost reflects the need to establish an evaluation team to review each of the applications and make recommendations about which projects to provide funding for. OST estimates that the evaluation team will include ten Federal employees from various agencies within the Department and seven contractors to assist with technical IT support.  The evaluation process will take no longer than four months, which is the equivalent of two and one half job years.  The estimated pay for the evaluation team members is approximately $60,000 per year, so the estimated annualized cost to the Federal government for the evaluation team is $600,000.  The estimated cost for the contractors is $700,000 which was allocated in the FY 10 Appropriation for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program.  OST does not expect to need any special equipment, other than printing.  As noted above in item 12, OST anticipates receiving 1,500 applications. If each application is 25 pages, as requested in the solicitation, OST may need to print as many as 37,500 pages for each of the ten members of the evaluation team, which adds up to a total of 375,000 pages of printing. (It’s likely that some of the members of the evaluation team will review electronic versions of the applications, but for the purpose of this estimate we assume that all members will review hard copies of all applications.) OST’s estimated printing costs are approximately 1 cent per page, with a total estimated printing cost of $3,750.

15. EXPLAIN REASONS FOR CHANGES IN BURDEN.

This is a new program.

15. PLANS FOR TABULATION AND PUBLICATION.

The applications collected for the TIGER II Discretionary Grant Program will not be published.

15. IF SEEKING APPROVAL NOT TO DISPLAY THE EXPIRATION DATE FOR OMB APPROVAL, EXPLAIN THE REASONS.

OST is not seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection.

15. EXPLAIN ANY EXCEPTIONS TO THE CERTIFICATION STATEMENT.

OST does not request any exceptions to the certification statement.

1 The relevant section of the FY 2010 Appropriations Act is attached hereto as Exhibit A. The application requirements specified in the solicitation for applications are attached hereto as Exhibit B.