[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 104 (Tuesday, June 1, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30380-30383]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-12967]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[Docket No. 100513224-224-01 I.D. GF001]


NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research; Fiscal Year 2011 
Ocean Exploration of the Aleutian Trench

AGENCY: Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Research (OAR), National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of funding availability.

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SUMMARY: The Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) is seeking 
pre-proposals and full proposals to support its mission, consistent 
with NOAA's Strategic Plan, to search, investigate, and document 
poorly-known and unknown areas of the Aleutian Trench, through 
interdisciplinary exploration, and to advance and disseminate knowledge 
of the ocean environment and its physical, chemical, and biological 
resources. Competitive Ocean Exploration proposals will be bold, 
innovative and interdisciplinary in their approach. NOAA OER 
anticipates a total of approximately $1,000,000 will be available 
through this announcement.

DATES: Completed pre-proposals must be received by 5 pm (EDT) on July 
1, 2010. Full proposal submissions must be received by 5 p.m. (EDT) on 
September 10, 2010. Applications received after the above deadlines 
will not be considered.

ADDRESSES: Pre-proposals must be submitted by either (1) e-mail at 
[email protected], or (2) hard-copy to ATTN: Dr. Nicolas Alvarado, 
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration & Research, SSMC III, 10th Floor, 1315 
East West Highway, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. For e-mail 
submissions, please put your last name in the subject heading along 
with ``OE Pre-proposal,'' e.g., ``Smith OE Pre-proposal.'' Adobe PDF 
format is preferred. No facsimile pre-proposals will be accepted.
    Full proposals must be submitted through Grants.gov. Applicants 
without Internet access may submit hard-copies to: ATTN: Dr. Nicolas 
Alvarado, NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration & Research, SSMC III, 10th 
Floor, 1315 East West Highway, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. No e-mail 
or facsimile full proposal submissions will be accepted from 
applicants.
    The required cover sheet for pre-proposals may be obtained through 
the OER Office Web site at: http://www.explore.noaa.gov/research-funding-opportunities. Application forms for full proposals are 
available through http://www.Grants.gov. For applicants without 
Internet access, hard copies of the cover sheet and the full proposal 
application package can be obtained via mail at NOAA Office of Ocean 
Exploration and Research, 1315 East West Highway, SSMC III, 10th Floor, 
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, or requested by phone at (301) 734-1015.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information contact the 
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research at (301) 734-1015 or 
submit inquiries via e-mail to the Frequently Asked Questions address: 
[email protected]. E-mail inquiries should include the Principal 
Investigator's name in the subject heading. Inquiries can be mailed to: 
ATTN: Dr. Nicolas Alvarado, NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and 
Research, 1315 East-West Highway SSMC III, 10th Floor, R/OER Silver 
Spring, Maryland 20910.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Electronic Access: The full text of the full 
funding opportunity (FFO) announcement for this program can be accessed 
via the Grants.gov Web site at http://www.grants.gov. The announcement 
will also be available by contacting the program officials identified 
under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT. Applicants must comply with all 
requirements contained in the FFO announcement.

    Statutory Authority: 33 U.S.C. 3403(a)(4).

    Program Description: The Office of Ocean Exploration and Research 
(OER) is seeking pre-proposals and full proposals to support its 
mission, consistent with NOAA's Strategic Plan, to search, investigate, 
and document poorly-known and unknown areas of the Aleutian Trench, 
through interdisciplinary exploration, and to advance and disseminate 
knowledge of the ocean environment and its physical, chemical, and 
biological resources. Competitive Ocean Exploration (OE) proposals will 
be bold, innovative and interdisciplinary in their approach.
    Specifically, the OER program intends to provide 60 days of UNOLS 
Global Class ship-time for operations in the Aleutian Trench. These 60 
days will

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focus on preliminary mapping of the East-West extent of the axis of the 
trench which resides in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. In addition 
to mapping, ship operations can include, but are not limited to, the 
deployment or towing of sensors and instrumentation packages. This 
announcement is intended to solicit proposals that can augment the 
survey operations of the Global Class vessel with minimal interference 
to the primary survey mission, or proposals for work on other vessels 
that can operate in conjunction with the Global Class vessel. Only 
exploratory proposals will be funded, any other kind of project will 
not be reviewed.
    Applicants are encouraged to visit the Ocean Explorer Web site 
(http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov) to familiarize themselves with past 
and present OER-funded activities. The office priorities for this 
opportunity support NOAA's mission support goal of: Ecosystems--
Protect, Restore, and Manage Use of Coastal and Ocean Resources through 
Ecosystem-Based Management.
    Funding Availibility: For Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, OER anticipates a 
total of approximately $1,000,000 will be available through this 
announcement. Depending on the quality and quantity of proposals 
received, OER anticipates supporting approximately 2-4 awards through 
this solicitation, resulting in an average award level of approximately 
$250,000-$500,000, including analysis and publication. OE is currently 
working with other NOAA program offices, Federal institutions, and 
public and private organizations to design this expedition, including 
developing a consistent approach to gather, organize, and process data 
and information. Once proposals have been selected, OE will work with 
the PIs to plan an integrated expedition that will optimize ship and 
asset schedules. The OER Director may hold-over select proposals 
submitted for 2011 funding for consideration in 2012. The amount of 
funding available through this announcement is subject to the final 
FY11 appropriation for the Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. 
Publication of this announcement does not obligate NOAA to fund any 
specific project or to obligate all or any part of available funds. 
There is no guarantee that sufficient funds will be available to 
initiate or continue research activities where funding has been 
recommended by OER. The exact amount of funds that OER may recommend be 
granted will be determined in pre-award negotiations between the 
applicant and NOAA representatives. Future opportunities for submitting 
proposals may be available and will depend on OER funding levels.
    Eligibility: Eligible applicants are institutions of higher 
education; other nonprofits; commercial organizations; foreign 
governments; organizations under the jurisdiction of foreign 
governments; international organizations; State, local and Indian 
Tribal governments; and other Federal agencies. Please Note: Before 
non-NOAA applicants may be funded, they must demonstrate that they have 
legal authority to receive funds from another Federal agency that is in 
excess of their appropriation. Because this announcement is not 
proposing to procure goods or services from applicants, the Economy Act 
(31 U.S.C. 1535) is not an appropriate legal basis.
    Cost Sharing Requirements: This program does not have any cost-
sharing requirements.
    Preparation of Pre-proposals: Applicants are required to submit a 
two-page pre-proposal application before submitting a full proposal. 
Applicants must also attach a cover sheet for the pre-proposal, which 
may be obtained through the OER Office Web site. Please see section 
IV.B.1. of the FFO for more information on the contents of the pre-
proposal. The purpose of a pre-proposal is to evaluate an applicant's 
proposal and to provide feedback on the viability of the project. An 
applicant is free to submit a full proposal regardless of the result of 
the OER Director's evaluation.
    Evaluation and Selection Procedures: The general evaluation 
criteria and selection factors that will be applied to pre-proposals 
and full proposals for this funding opportunity are summarized below. 
Further information about the evaluation criteria and selection factors 
can be found in the full funding opportunity announcement.

Evaluation Criteria for Projects

i. Pre-Proposal Evaluation Criteria

    The OER Director, in consultation with the Office staff, will 
evaluate pre-proposals using the following criteria: (1) Importance, 
Relevance and Applicability of Proposal to the OER Goals and thematic 
priorities (see Section I.A. Office & Notice Objectives and Section 
I.B. Office Priorities & Guidance of the FFO announcement for more 
information); (2) Scientific and Technical Merit, (3) Overall 
qualifications of applicants, (4) Project Costs, (5) Logistical 
feasibility (e.g., ship or equipment availability), and (6) Consistency 
with the priorities of this announcement. These factors are described 
in more detail below and in Section V.A.ii. ``Full Proposal Evaluation 
Criteria'' of the FFO.

ii. Full Proposal Evaluation Criteria

    The following criteria, with the corresponding weight value, will 
be used to review full proposals: 1. Importance/Relevance and 
Applicability of Proposal to OER Goals (40%): This criterion ascertains 
whether there is intrinsic value in the proposed work and relevance to 
appropriate NOAA, international, regional, State, or local activities. 
For the OER review process this includes the degree to which the 
proposal addresses and supports OER's mission, objectives, themes and 
priorities (see Section I.A. Office & Notice Objectives, and Section 
I.B. Office Priorities & Guidance contained in the FFO). A central 
aspect of this criteria is whether the proposed effort is exploratory 
in nature (expanding the breadth of knowledge) as opposed to a research 
focus (expanding the depth of knowledge on any particular topic). 2. 
Scientific and Technical Merit (40%): This criterion ascertains whether 
the approach is technically sound and/or innovative, whether the 
methods are appropriate, and whether there are clear project goals and 
objectives. For the OER review process, in addition to the scientific, 
and/or technical merit of the effort, review criteria include whether: 
(a) The effort is interdisciplinary with suitable plans and methods, 
(b) the anticipated results (as appropriate, scientific, technical, 
historical, cultural, societal or economic) will have high downstream 
impact, e.g., leading to the revision of existing paradigms, the 
formulation of new paradigms or new frontiers of knowledge or activity, 
and (c) plans for preservation, documentation, and sharing of data, 
multimedia, specimen collections are adequately and clearly outlined. 
3. Overall qualifications of applicants (10%): This ascertains whether 
the applicant(s) possesses the necessary education, experience, 
training, facilities and administrative resources to accomplish the 
project. For the OER review process this includes (a) the 
qualifications of the applicant(s), (b) the strength, diversity and 
depth of any partnership to accomplish the work proposed, and (c) the 
applicant's prior OER award performance, including timely publication 
of results, if applicable. 4. Project Costs (10%): This criterion 
evaluates the budget to determine whether it is realistic and 
commensurate with the project needs and time-frame. For the OER review 
process this includes the reasonableness of project costs, relative to 
the scope and impact of work proposed and the

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available funds. 5. Outreach and education (no points): This criterion 
assesses whether the project provides a focused and effective education 
and outreach strategy regarding NOAA's mission to protect the Nations 
natural resources. This criterion is not used in this competition.

Review and Selection Process

    Upon receipt of a pre-proposal application, the OER Director, after 
consultation with OER staff, will evaluate each pre-proposal using the 
Pre-Proposal Evaluation Criteria, and make the decision whether to 
encourage or discourage the applicant from submitting a full proposal. 
A recommendation from the OER Director that discourages the submission 
of a full proposal does not preclude the applicant from submitting the 
full proposal.
    Once a full proposal is received by NOAA, an initial administrative 
review is conducted to determine compliance with requirements and 
completeness of the application. Proposals determined to be in 
compliance and complete will be subjected to peer-review. Peer 
reviewers shall rate the individual proposals using the evaluation 
criteria and percentage weights provided above and provide summary 
comment. Both Federal and non-Federal experts in the field may be used 
in the peer-review process, which may include external mail reviews 
and/or a peer-review panel. Peer-review panelists will not be asked to 
reach consensus on individual proposals. Based on the individual 
external mail reviewer scores, summary comments, and summaries and 
scores by the panelists, if a peer-review panel is used, the OER Senior 
Scientist, after consultation with appropriate OER staff, will make 
funding recommendations to the Selecting Official, who is the OER 
Director. In making the final selections, the OER Director will award 
in rank order unless the proposal is justified to be selected out of 
rank order based upon one or more of the selection factors below and as 
further detailed in section V.C. of the FFO.
    Selection Factors for Projects: The Selecting Official shall award 
in the rank order unless the proposal is justified to be selected out 
of rank order based on the following factors. 1. Availability of 
funding. 2. Balance/distribution of funds: a. Geographically (This 
includes ship availability). b. by type of institutions. c. by type of 
partners. d. by research areas. e. by project types. 3. Whether this 
project duplicates other projects funded or considered for funding by 
NOAA or other agencies. 4. Office priorities and policy factors (as 
described in Section I.B of the FFO). 5. Applicants prior award 
performance. 6. Partnerships and/or participation of targeted groups. 
7. Adequacy of information necessary for NOAA staff to make a NEPA 
determination and draft necessary documentation before recommendations 
for funding are made to the Grants Officer.
    Intergovernmental Review: Applications under this notice are 
subject to Executive Order 12372, ``Intergovernmental Review of 
Programs.'' Applicants must contact their State's Single Point of 
Contact (SPOC) to find out about and comply with the State's process 
under EO 12372. The names and addresses of the SPOC's are listed in the 
Office of Management and Budget's Web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/grants/spoc.html.
    Limitation of Liability: In no event will NOAA or the Department of 
Commerce be responsible for proposal preparation costs if these 
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 
which 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/NAO216_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 feasible measures to 
reduce or avoid any identified adverse environmental impacts of their 
proposal. The failure to do so shall be grounds for not selecting an 
application. In some cases, 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 February 11, 2008 (73 FR 
7696), 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, 424A, 424B, and SF-LLL and CD-346 has 
been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (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, nor shall a 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.
    Administrative Procedure Act/Regulatory Flexibility Act: Prior 
notices and an opportunity for public comment are not required by the 
Administrative Procedure Act or any other law for rules concerning 
public property, loans, grants, benefits, and contracts (5 U.S.C. 
553(a)(2)). Because notice and opportunity for comment are not required 
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553 or any other law, the analytical requirements 
for the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) are 
inapplicable. Therefore, a regulatory flexibility analysis has not been 
prepared.


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    Dated: May 25, 2010.
Mark E. Brown,
Chief Financial Officer/Chief Administrative Officer, Office of Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration.
[FR Doc. 2010-12967 Filed 5-28-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-KA-P