Hot New Programs

The Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure Program (RFSI) aims to enhance the resilience of the middle of the State's food supply chain for various food crops. This program will provide financial support to expand the infrastructure and operations involved in aggregating, processing, manufacturing, storing, transporting, wholesaling, and distributing locally and regionally produced food products, excluding meat and poultry. The program operates through cooperative agreements between the State Department of Agriculture and USDA, with funds allocated to domestic food and farm businesses and other eligible entities.

The Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP) offers grants to eligible processors to expand their processing capacity, creating enhanced options for meat and poultry producers. The program, designed by USDA Rural Development, aims to stimulate competition, sustainable growth, and supply chain resilience within the U.S. meat processing sector.

Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act’s “elective pay” (often called “direct pay”) provisions, tax-exempt and governmental entities will, for the first time, be able to receive a payment equal to the full value of tax credits for building qualifying clean energy projects. Unlike competitive grant and loan programs, in which applicants may not receive an award, direct pay allows entities to get their payment if they meet the requirements for both direct pay and the underlying tax credit.

This program provides grants to repair essential community facilities in rural areas that were damaged by Presidentially Declared Disasters in Calendar Year 2022. An essential community facility is defined as a facility that provides an essential service to the local community for the orderly development of the community in a primarily rural area and does not include private, commercial or business undertakings.

The Energy Future Grants (EFG) will provide financial and technical assistance to local government, state, territorial, and/or tribal partnerships to design innovative, multijurisdictional deployment plans that maximize scalable energy affordability. EFG will provide approximately $27 million in cooperative agreements. Approximately 50 awards of $500,000 are expected.

 

Proposals in this area should include planning approaches for reducing the energy intensity or greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, with a focus on efforts to advance projects that benefit infrastructure, mobility, and net zero fuels. Innovative actions may include efforts to support on-and-off-road technology adoption and fuel use, including freight and aviation fleets. Teams should consider including US DOE Clean Cities Coalitions as partners.

 

Scalable innovations in the power sector including distributed energy delivery models that emphasize affordability and demand flexibility (e.g., pricing, rates, or tariffs). Other ideas include fuel switching to net zero carbon fuels, electrification, microgrids, supply chain and/or procurement strategies. that support economic, health, and job benefits in disadvantaged communities. Teams should consider utilities or regulatory agencies as partners.

 

Innovative strategies for creating net zero commercial and residential buildings, including opportunities in the multi-family sector or at community facilities. Approaches include the adoption of building engineering, construction, and retrofit programs that account for occupant behavior, technology integration, and procurement of energy efficient material or the wider use of performance standards to drive outcomes (electrification, decarbonization, resilience). Teams should consider experts in affordable housing or building performance as partners.

 

The Water/Wastewater Financing Program provides low-cost financing for design and construction of public infrastructure needed to ensure compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act or the Clean Water Act.

The Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant (NAE) Program provides funds for projects that improve walkability, safety, and affordable transportation access. The program supports context-sensitive strategies and addresses existing transportation facilities that create barriers to community connectivity or negative impacts on the human or natural environment, especially in disadvantaged or underserved communities.

 

The program also provides funding for planning and capacity-building activities in disadvantaged or underserved communities as well as funding for technical assistance to units of local government to facilitate efficient and effective contracting, design, and project delivery and to build capacity for delivering surface transportation projects.

Battlefield Interpretation Grants (BIG) empower recipients to modernize and enhance battlefield education and interpretation – to inspire wonder, understanding and empathy at the places that witnessed some of our nation’s most challenging events. This grant program encourages the use of technology to connect with visitors through videos, mobile apps, interpretive signs, augmented reality and more.

This program will provide funding to support the recycling of consumer electronics batteries and battery-containing devices to help build a robust domestic critical material supply chain for EV batteries in the United States.

 

Topic Area 1: Expanding Consumer Participation in Consumer Electronics Battery Recycling Programs

The objective of this topic area is to develop and implement an education and/or behavior change campaign to increase participation by consumers in existing battery recycling programs. This objective aims to support the Federal Consortium for  Advanced Batteries (FCAB) National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries goal of achieving 90% recycling of consumer electronics batteries by 2030.

Topic Area 2: Improving the Economics of Recycling Consumer Electronics Batteries

The objective of this topic area is to improve the economics of recycling consumer electronics batteries sufficiently to generate a greater market demand for recycling these batteries. There are multiple strategies that individually or in combination can help achieve this goal, such as improving the logistics and processes involved with collection, transportation, storage, and dismantling of EOL batteries (including designing for sustainability). In order to complement and support existing DOE programs that focus on the technical aspects of physically and chemically recycling batteries, this topic area is specifically aimed at reducing the costs associated with actions and steps taken before the chemical processes of reclaiming value from batteries at a recycling facility.

Topic Area 3: State and Local Programs for Consumer Electronics Battery Collection, Recycling and Reprocessing

The objective of this topic area is to establish programs that will assist States and units of local government in the establishment or enhancement of battery
collection, recycling, and reprocessing. Applications should strive to achieve sustainable investments in establishing state or local recycling processes and
infrastructure.

Topic Area 4: Retailer Programs for Consumer Electronics Battery Collection

The objective of this topic area is to establish and/or implement programs with retailers that will provide battery collection. Programs can focus on any or all of
these recycling steps such as collecting, handling, sorting, storing, and transporting spent and discarded batteries and electronics containing batteries. They do not need to address or propose industrial or chemical processes for recycling. Activities should address key challenges such as transportation; collection/storage; and overall communication, training, and public information. Each program must report on the number of battery collection points established or enhanced and the quantity of material collected.

This grant program is administered by The Recycling Partnership’s PET Recycling Coalition, which brings together a robust group of stakeholders to drive improvements that transform the PET recycling landscape.

The purpose of the PET Recycling Coalition’s Grant Program is to facilitate a number of distinct yet interrelated improvements related to the circularity of PET packaging in the United States:

• Increasing the capture of PET at MRFs, secondary sortation facilities, and/or PET reclaimers by improving process effectiveness and reducing yield loss;
• Increasing the number of local recycling programs accepting PET non-bottle rigids (e.g. thermoformed clamshells, cups, trays;
• Increasing the recycling viability of pigmented and/or opaque PET;
• Optimizing the supply of rPET by aligning rPET characteristics with end market needs.

This program focuses on equipment and process investments that contribute to these desired outcomes. All projects must result in the successful ongoing return of PET to manufacturing use, with preference given to systems returning PET to packaging manufacturing use.