Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Program

$848 million AVAILABLE for climate RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE projects! 

Funding Overview

Planning Grants

• 100 percent funding
• $25 M/year for FY22-FY23
• $30 M/year for FY24-FY26

Resilience Improvement Grants

• 80 percent funding
• $175 M/year for FY22-FY23
• $210 M/year for FY24-FY26

Community Resilience & Evacuation Route Grants

• 80 percent funding
• $25 M/year for FY22-FY23
• $30 M/year for FY24-FY26

At-Risk Coastal Infrastructure Grants

• 80 percent funding
• $25 M/year for FY22-FY23
• $30 M/year for FY24-FY26

Eligible Applicants 

Planning, Resilience Improvement, and Community Resilience and Evacuation Route Grants

• a State (including, D.C. and Puerto Rico) or political subdivision of a State
• a metropolitan planning organization
• a unit of local government
• a special purpose district or public authority with a transportation function, including a port authority
• an Indian tribe (as defined in 23 U.S.C. 207(m)(1))
• a Federal land management agency that applies jointly with a State or group of States
• a multi-State or multi-jurisdictional group of entities consisting of any eligible entities listed above [§ 11405; 23 U.S.C. 176(d)(2)]

At-Risk Coastal Infrastructure Grants

• a State (including DC, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands) in, or bordering on, the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, Long Island Sound, or one or more of the Great Lakes
• a political subdivision of a State described above
• a metropolitan planning organization in a State described above
• a unit of local government in a State described above
• a special purpose district or public authority with a transportation function, including a port authority, in a State described above
• an Indian tribe in a State described above
• a Federal land management agency that applies jointly with a State or group of States described above
• a multi-State or multijurisdictional group of eligible entities listed above

Eligible Activities

The PROTECT Discretionary Grant program provides funding for—

Planning Grants

To include resilience planning, predesign, design, or the development of data tools to simulate transportation disruption scenarios, including vulnerability assessments; technical capacity building to facilitate the ability of the eligible entity to assess the vulnerabilities of its surface transportation assets and community response strategies under current conditions and a range of potential future conditions; or evacuation planning and preparation.

Resilience Improvement Grants

To improve the ability of an existing surface transportation asset to withstand one or more elements of a weather event or natural disaster, or to increase the resilience of surface transportation infrastructure from the impacts of changing conditions, such as sea level rise, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters.

Community Resilience and Evacuation Route Grants

That strengthen and protect evacuation routes that are essential for providing and supporting evacuations caused by emergency events, including:

• resilience improvements, if they will improve evacuation routes,
• projects that ensure the ability of the evacuation route to provide safe passage during an evacuation and reduce the risk of damage to evacuation routes as a result of future emergency events,
• the acquisition of evacuation route or traffic incident management equipment or signage, or
• projects that will ensure access or service to critical destinations, including hospitals and other medical or emergency services facilities, major employers, critical manufacturing centers, ports and intermodal facilities, utilities, and Federal facilities.

Upon notification to the Secretary that existing evacuation routes are not sufficient to adequately facilitate evacuations, including the transportation of emergency responders and recovery resources, eligible activities include:

• communications and intelligent transportation system equipment and infrastructure,
• counterflow measures, or
• shoulders; and
• construction of new or redundant evacuation routes.

At-Risk Coastal Infrastructure Grants

To strengthen, stabilize, harden, elevate, relocate or otherwise enhance the resilience of highway and non-rail infrastructure, including: bridges, roads, pedestrian walkways, and bicycle lanes, and associated infrastructure, such as culverts and tide gates to protect highways that are subject to, or face increased long-term future risks of, a weather event, a natural disaster, or changing conditions, including coastal flooding, coastal erosion, wave action, storm surge, or sea level rise, in order to improve transportation and public safety and to reduce costs by avoiding larger future maintenance or rebuilding costs.