A Rising Tide: How the Infrastructure Act is Pumping up NOAA

August 7, 2022

Sharpen your pencils - there's lots of grants to write!

On this jam-packed episode, hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham turn their attention to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the opportunities it will provide for coastal communities from around the American Shoreline. Now, in it's first year, the dramatic funding impacts of the new law are being felt across government, including at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Up first, Assistant Administrator of the National Ocean Service Nicole LeBoeuf explains how NOAA's broad mission greatly overlaps with the core intentions of the Infrastructure Act, and how NOAA's last 50 years of science and policy expertise at the local and regional levels and have prepared the Agency for this transformational moment and beyond. Then (27:50), Joelle Gore and Carrie Selberg Robinson join the show to discuss several specific grant opportunities that are currently available at the Agency (and will be for the next 5 years), and how local coastal communities can become involved in applying for them! Don't miss it, only on ASPN!

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Show Transcription
This transcription was generated by a computer. Please excuse any errors.
Peter Ravella & Tyler Buckingham

Peter and Tyler joined forces in 2015 and from the first meeting began discussing a project that would become Coastal News Today and the American Shoreline Podcast Network. At the time, Peter and Tyler were coastal consultants for Pete’s firm, PAR Consulting, LLC. In that role, they worked with coastal communities in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, engaged in grant writing, coastal project development, shoreline erosion and land use planning, permitting, and financial planning for communities undertaking big beach restoration projects. Between and among their consulting tasks, they kept talking and kept building the idea of CNT & ASPN. In almost every arena they worked, public engagement played a central role. They spent thousands of hours talking with coastal stakeholders, like business owners, hotel operators, condo managers, watermen, property owners, enviros, surfers, and fishermen. They dived deep into the value, meaning, and responsibility for the American shoreline, segment-by-segment. Common threads emerged, themes were revealed, differences uncovered. There was a big conversation going on along the American shoreline! But, no place to have it. That's where CNT and ASPN were born.