16 U.S.C. § 1447d — Research grant program

(a) The NOAA Administrator must administer grants supporting each Board’s administrative functions. (b)(1) Each Board may annually apply for a NOAA grant for projects that achieve priorities in its approved research plan and amendments. (2) Eligible projects include research, investigations, studies, surveys, or demonstrations concerning: (A) baseline marine environmental quality, including chemical, physical, and biological indicators; (B) effects or possible effects of contaminants, including nutrients, toxic chemicals, and heavy metals, on the environment and marine or aquatic organisms; (C) effects of changing habitats, including coastal wetlands, seagrass beds, and reefs; (D) effects of pollutant sources and discharges into coastal areas; (E) movement, spreading, transformation, fate, and effects of contaminants; (F) assessing and restoring marine and estuarine habitats; (G) methods for modeling environmental conditions and trends; (H) methods for sampling water, sediment, and marine or aquatic organisms and demonstrating those methods; (I) human-health and environmental effects of natural or human-caused contaminants, alone or combined, at different levels; (J) environmental effects of major planned coastal and offshore development; (K) climate-change effects on regional marine resources; and (L) analyzing and interpreting data for regional State and local environmental-protection and resource-management agencies. (3) Each application must include: (A) each proposed project; (B) the responsible organization and principal investigator; (C) each project’s budget; (D) milestones and interim products; (E) how each project relates to the regional plan’s goals and priorities and to other research; and (F) any other information the Administrator requires. (c)(1) NOAA must review the annual application and, with EPA’s Administrator’s concurrence, approve it with appropriate conditions based on peer review. (2) NOAA must establish peer review that funds only the highest-quality research and has scientists from outside the region review each project. (d) Each grant recipient must report to the appropriate Board within 18 months after the award on activities under the grant. The report must contain narrative summaries and technical data in the form NOAA requires.