[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]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

[[Page 25815]]

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

[[Page 25816]]

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]
BILLING CODE 3510-KD-M