BOEMRE Awards $1.1M to Texas
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has awarded two Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) grants totaling $1,162,302 to the Texas General Land Office and to Brazoria County, Texas, respectively. The grants will fund a project to develop a Coastal Impacts Technology Program (CITP) for conservation research, and will assist in the management of the CIAP Program in Brazoria County.
Created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, CIAP provides funding to the six Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas producing states to conserve and protect the coastal environment. CIAP is an ongoing program with grant funding that is allocated based on the offshore energy revenues collected by the United States.
“BOEMRE is proud to support Texas in its conservation and restoration initiatives, which are crucial to the state’s coastal communities,” said BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich. “Through the CIAP program, we are able to provide the necessary funding to continue the important work of preserving our coastal environment for future generations.”
The first grant will provide $1 million to the Texas General Land office to work with the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA), a non-profit consortium composed of more than 150 leading U.S. organizations. RPSEA includes organizations drawn from industry, academia, independent research laboratories, and government agencies. The consortium will implement the CITP to identify and apply environmentally-friendly technologies along the Texas Gulf Coast. The proposal seeks to assess, demonstrate and measure the effectiveness of these new technologies for potential commercial application, as well as fund educational workforce programs. The CITP research efforts will conserve and protect the natural coastal environment by reducing the effects of energy exploration and production activities along the Texas coast.
The second grant will provide $162,302 to Brazoria County, Texas. This award will fund compliance and management expenses and various other costs associated with administering the county’s CIAP program.
CIAP received $250 million in appropriated funds for each of the Fiscal years 2007-2010, to be disbursed to six eligible OCS oil and gas producing states: Texas, Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana and Mississippi.
