Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Tribes and Underserved Communities, Under the BIL and IRA | NOAA NMFS HCPO 2023 2008173

Opportunity Information: Apply for NOAA NMFS HCPO 2023 2008173

The Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Tribes and Underserved Communities is a NOAA discretionary funding opportunity administered by the NOAA Office of Habitat Conservation (Department of Commerce, CFDA 11.463) that uses cooperative agreements to help tribes, tribal entities, and underserved communities take a real, leading role in coastal habitat restoration and resilience work. The core purpose is not just to fund construction in the field, but to make sure communities that are often left out have the staff, planning support, data, and resources needed to shape and carry out restoration projects that protect their people, lands, waters, and local economies. The opportunity is backed by major federal investments under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and the Inflation Reduction Act, and it explicitly aligns with the federal push to strengthen coastal resilience and advance equity, including the Justice40 Initiative goal of directing a significant share of benefits to disadvantaged communities.

NOAA anticipates up to $45 million total under this competition. A major feature is the set-aside for tribes: $20 million is specifically reserved for direct awards and subawards to Indian tribes (as defined in 25 U.S.C. 5304(e)) and Native American organizations that formally represent tribes through legal agreements, such as tribal commissions, consortia, conservation districts, and cooperatives. The remaining $25 million is available to the full pool of eligible applicants. There is no formal cost-share or matching requirement, which is important for communities and organizations that may not have flexible funds to meet match expectations. Even without a match requirement, NOAA emphasizes that proposals most closely aligned with program priorities will be the most competitive.

Projects must be based in coastal, estuarine, marine, or Great Lakes settings, and the program is open to work in U.S. states and eligible U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico). Great Lakes proposals must be located in one of the eight Great Lakes states (New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota). The Freely Associated States (RMI, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia) are not eligible to apply as prime applicants under this opportunity. Federal agencies and federal employees cannot apply as recipients, although they can participate as unfunded partners. Foreign entities also cannot be prime recipients, but they may participate as contractors, subrecipients, or informal collaborators under a U.S.-based prime recipient.

The program focuses on three main categories of activities, and applicants can propose one category or combine them into a single package. The first category is capacity building, which can include participating in municipal or regional resilience planning, conducting project planning and feasibility studies, engaging stakeholders, doing outreach and education, developing future proposals, and hiring staff to build long-term organizational ability to design and implement restoration work. NOAA is also clear that capacity can include the less visible but essential functions that make projects succeed, like grants management, tracking and reporting, coordination, and overall project development. The second category is actionable science support, meaning the collection and/or analysis of climate, habitat, or community-relevant data that directly informs planning decisions or sets the stage for future restoration actions. The third category is restoration project activities, including demonstration projects, which can cover engineering and design, permitting, on-the-ground construction or restoration actions, and monitoring before and after implementation to measure outcomes and guide adaptive management.

A consistent thread throughout the opportunity is that competitive applications need to directly benefit tribes or underserved communities, not just operate near them or mention them. Applicants must demonstrate their status as a tribe, a tribal entity, or an underserved community, or clearly document a meaningful connection and partnership with those communities. NOAA will review that claim during eligibility screening and again during merit review, and it may validate the narrative against publicly available demographic and economic data. This emphasis on documentation signals that partnerships should be real and structured, with community priorities and benefits clearly spelled out rather than implied.

NOAA also places strong weight on meaningful community engagement. In practice, this means community members should be involved early and throughout the project in visioning, decision-making, and leadership, especially where restoration actions could affect local environments, health, cultural resources, or livelihoods. The agency encourages proposals that demonstrate diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) principles through proactive and equitable engagement methods, and it specifically encourages applicants to elevate and appropriately incorporate local or Indigenous knowledge in project design, implementation, and evaluation. The notice points applicants to federal guidance on Indigenous Knowledge from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality, reinforcing that these considerations are not peripheral, but increasingly central to how federal agencies evaluate community-based environmental work.

In terms of award size and timeline, NOAA expects typical federal funding levels in the range of $250,000 to $1,000,000 over roughly three years, and it encourages applicants to propose periods of performance up to three years, with the possibility of extending to as much as five years if justified and approved. Requests must be at least $75,000 and cannot exceed $3,000,000 total federal funding for the entire award. NOAA also signals that proposals requesting amounts near the ceiling should generally include on-the-ground restoration along with capacity building and/or science support, rather than focusing only on planning or data work. This creates a practical roadmap: smaller requests can reasonably focus on staffing, planning, feasibility, or data, while larger requests are expected to move further into implementation.

Finally, NOAA frames the program within a broader federal strategy for coastal resilience. Coastal habitats and natural or nature-based solutions are presented as tools that help communities prepare for and recover from hurricanes, coastal storms, flooding, and sea level rise, while also supporting fisheries (commercial, recreational, and subsistence), protecting threatened and endangered species, and sustaining local coastal economies and ways of life. This opportunity sits alongside other NOAA resilience and restoration programs, but it is distinct in how explicitly it centers tribes, tribal entities, and underserved communities by funding both the “people side” (capacity, engagement, management) and the “project side” (science, design, permitting, implementation, and monitoring) needed to deliver durable habitat restoration and resilience benefits.

• The Department of Commerce in the environment, iij, natural resources, other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Coastal Habitat Restoration and Resilience Grants for Tribes and Underserved Communities, Under the BIL and IRA" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 11.463.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-09-01.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-12-19. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $3,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for NOAA NMFS HCPO 2023 2008173

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