PROTECT Resilience Improvement Plan

As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, otherwise known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) in 2021, the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT) Federal Aid Program was created. PROTECT’s purpose is to help make surface transportation more resilient to natural hazards, including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters through support of planning activities, resilience improvements, community resilience and evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure.

The PROTECT Program invites state DOTs to create a Resilience Improvement Plan, an optional component that can reduce the state and local cost-share of identified PROTECT projects. The State Climate Resilience Improvement Plan for Transportation (SCRIPT) is California’s response to this optional component. The SCRIPT summarizes and highlights the breadth of existing climate adaptation policies, tools, guidance, and activities that have positioned Caltrans and its partners to take a systemic approach to making immediate and long-range investments to improve the resilience of the multi-modal transportation system.

The non-federal cost share requirement may be reduced from 20% to 10% for certain projects included in the SCRIPT’s unconstrained Project Priority List (“PPL”, see Appendix F of the SCRIPT document) that are subsequently awarded PROTECT grant funds. The PPL identifies Caltrans-led projects eligible for PROTECT formula funding, as well as Caltrans and external agency projects that are pursuing PROTECT discretionary grant funding. The SCRIPT’s PPL will be periodically updated in coordination with PROTECT stakeholders to reflect new project nominations pursuing discretionary grant funds in future cycles through 2026 (subject to federal review and approval). Requests to add new PROTECT nominations for inclusion in SCRIPT “Amendment 1”  for Cycles Two of the FHWA PROTECT Discretionary Grants and Local Transportation Climate Adaptation Program closed on 5/10/2024. The next update will likely be in spring 2025, depending on availability and timing of remaining cycles of the FHWA PROTECT Discretionary grants.