ARRA OST Emergency Letter

To:	Office of Management & Budget
From:	Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, Office of the Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation
Re:	Paperwork Reduction Act Requirements for New Program Funded Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
Date:	May 7, 2009

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“ARRA”), established funding for a new program in the Office of the Secretary of Transportation for Supplemental Discretionary Grants for a National Surface Transportation System (the Department is referring to these grants as “Grants for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery,” or “TIGER Grants”). The TIGER Grants program is funded with $1.5 billion to be awarded competitively for projects that have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area, or a region.

ARRA provides specific deadlines for this program. The Department must publish criteria for this program no later than 90 days after ARRA’s enactment, which is May 18, 2009. Applications for TIGER Grants must be submitted to the Department no later than 180 days after the criteria are published, and the Department must announce awards no later than one year after ARRA’s enactment, which is February 17, 2010. In order to ensure that the TIGER Grants are awarded in an expeditious manner and in the timeframes established by ARRA, the Department requests approval to use OMB’s emergency processing system to meet Paperwork Reduction Act (“PRA”) requirements.

The Department is required to comply with PRA requirements for the TIGER Grants program because the Department is required to request applications for funding under this new program. The Department is in the process of securing clearance for the draft solicitation internally and from OMB. We expect to hear back from OMB on the content of the solicitation by Friday, May 7, 2009. In order to meet the statutory deadline for publication, we would like to incorporate any comments that OMB has and publish the solicitation towards the beginning of next week (the week of May 11, 2009). The Department is therefore requesting approval of this request by Monday, May 11, 2009.

Without your approval of this request by Monday, May 11, 2009, the publication of the solicitation may be delayed. We appreciate your consideration of this request.