Infrastructure Act

US DOT Opens Round for IIJA Grant Competitions Totaling $5.6B

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has begun to take applications for a new round of three types of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act grants that will total as much as $5.6 billion.

The agency's June 27 announcement of the new application round applies to what it calls the National Infrastructure Project Assistance, or Mega, program, which has $1.8 billion available; the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) program, with $3.1 billion, and the Rural Surface Transportation Grant program, with $675 million.

The three-program application, now called the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant program, was created last year, with DOT noting that it received “overwhelmingly positive” responses.

The deadline for the new round of grants is Aug. 21.

For Mega, the funding law directs 50% of its available funding for projects with total cost exceedsing $500 million, and the other 50% for those between $100 million and $500 million. In the previous Mega round, DOT awarded $1.2 billion in grants.

INFRA grants go to multimodal freight and highway projects that are nationally or regionally significant. DOT awarded $1.5 billion in grants for its 2022 round.

Rural grants are aimed at highway, bridge and tunnel projects in rural areas. The 2022 rural grant awards totaled $274 million.

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As ENR's former Washington Bureau Chief, Tom Ichniowski wrote about the federal government since the George H.W. Bush administration, and covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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