FY25 IIJA/IRA Bureau of Land Management Headquarters (HQ) Rangeland Resource Management | L25AS00170

Opportunity Information: Apply for L25AS00170

The FY25 IIJA/IRA Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Headquarters Rangeland Resource Management funding opportunity (Opportunity No. L25AS00170; CFDA 15.237) is a discretionary federal grant program offered by BLM to support national-level rangeland management priorities through cooperative agreements. The core purpose of the program is to improve how rangelands are understood, managed, and sustained by funding projects that strengthen inventories, assessments, and evaluations of soil and vegetation conditions and overall land health. A major emphasis is on collecting and analyzing monitoring data to track whether rangelands are moving toward, meeting, or maintaining BLM land health standards, and to guide management decisions with defensible, science-based information.

Projects funded under this opportunity are expected to focus on high-priority work that affects the rangeland program nationally, particularly work that crosses state boundaries rather than being limited to a single local site. The intent is to invest in activities that help maintain or achieve land health and productivity over large landscapes, increase carbon sequestration, and build more resilient rangeland ecosystems that can better withstand and recover from stressors such as drought, wildfire, invasive species, and other climate-related impacts. While proposals can take different forms, the opportunity highlights several example activities that fit well within program goals, including conservation and restoration actions designed to combat climate change, soils mapping efforts, development or refinement of ecological site descriptions, and approaches that engage communities and stakeholders through mentoring, training, and educational programs that build capacity for long-term stewardship.

Eligibility is limited to a defined set of non-federal applicant types. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city/township governments; special district governments; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments; tribal organizations other than federally recognized governments; and nonprofit organizations both with and without 501(c)(3) status. Individuals and for-profit organizations are explicitly ineligible under this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), so proposals must be submitted by an eligible governmental, tribal, academic, or nonprofit entity.

There are also important program limitations applicants need to account for when designing proposals. This NOFO does not support projects that would involve hiring interns or crews under the Public Lands Corps Act of 1993. BLM notes that the Public Lands Corps Act is the specific legal authority that governs that type of internship hiring, and as a result Youth Conservation Corps or similar youth-focused work should be routed through a different funding opportunity instead (NOFO 15.243, BLM Youth Conservation Opportunities on Public Lands). Applicants planning youth corps or internship components should treat that as a key compliance constraint and avoid building proposals around PLC-style hiring under this particular announcement.

The NOFO also addresses applications submitted through Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESUs), which are partnership networks designed to support research, technical assistance, monitoring, education, and related services aligned with federal resource management needs. If an award is made to a CESU partner under an existing, formally negotiated Master CESU agreement and the work is consistent with CESU purposes, then indirect costs are capped at no more than 17.5 percent of the indirect cost base recognized in the partner’s federally approved Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (NICRA). Applicants are encouraged to state clearly whether their proposal advances the CESU mission and, if so, to identify which CESU Network should be considered the host, which helps BLM route and administer the agreement appropriately.

From an administrative standpoint, the award instrument is a cooperative agreement, which generally signals that BLM expects substantial involvement during the project (for example, collaboration on technical direction, coordination across jurisdictions, or shared implementation and monitoring). The opportunity was created on December 11, 2024, and the original application closing date is February 14, 2025. The listed award ceiling is $10,000,000, indicating that very large, multi-state or nationally significant efforts may be competitive, especially those that produce broadly usable data products, methods, training frameworks, or cross-boundary monitoring and assessment approaches that can be scaled across BLM-managed rangelands.

• The Bureau of Land Management in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY25 IIJA/IRA Bureau of Land Management Headquarters (HQ) Rangeland Resource Management" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.237.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-12-11.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-02-14. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education.

Apply for L25AS00170

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