Today, NOAA and the Commerce Department announced that $1.5 million is available to be competitively awarded to federally recognized tribes to increase tribal participation with regional ocean partnerships under the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
This fiscal year 2024 and 2025 funding opportunity allows NOAA to support projects that encourage or enhance tribes’ ability to participate with existing regional ocean partnerships, including supporting partnership development and increasing tribal information and Indigenous Knowledge within regional databases.
“The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to ensuring that tribes have the resources they need to be climate resilient,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “This funding opportunity, made possible thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help increase Tribal participation in key regional ocean partnerships that boost climate resilience across Tribal lands.”
"Tribes are essential partners in climate resilience strategies that involve government, private sector, academia and community stakeholders,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “This funding opportunity will enable essential collaboration between tribes and regional ocean partnerships as we advance towards a more climate-ready future."
Projects supported by these funds must:
- Enhance or create capacity for tribes to engage with and in regional ocean partnership activities;
- Support the development of partnerships or engagement between a tribal government and a regional ocean partnership in the management of ocean and coastal resources;
- Increase consideration and inclusion of tribal information and Indigenous Knowledge (as appropriate) in regional data and projects;
- Enhance tribes’ ability to access data developed by regional ocean partnerships, or to inform which data and tools are available in regional data and projects and/or;
- Provide opportunities for tribes to work together to define intertribal ocean and coastal management priorities and identify alignment and intersection with regional ocean partnership priorities.
U.S. federally recognized Indian tribes with current or ancestral interests in a region with an established regional ocean partnership are eligible. Tribal proposals are due October 31, 2024.
About regional ocean partnerships
Regional ocean partnerships are organizations voluntarily convened by states working in collaboration with other governments (including tribal, federal, and local) and stakeholders to address ocean and coastal issues of common concern in that geographic region. There are four established regional ocean partnerships: the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, the Northeast Regional Ocean Council, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean and the West Coast Ocean Alliance.
NOAA engaged in consultation with federally recognized tribes in a dialogue about Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding opportunities, which included listening sessions held in February 2022. Responses to input from the tribes on this spending are available on NOAA’s National Ocean Service website.
More: Visit the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law website to learn about current and upcoming funding opportunities, and NOAA’s tribal resources website.
