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CHAPTER 5-210

APPLICATION REVIEW AND PROCESSING FOR A REGULATORY GRANT

5-210-00 What does this chapter do?

5-210-10 How long will we take to review your application and award your grant?

5-210-20 How do we review your application?

5-210-30 How do we process your grant award?

5-210-40 How do we document our review and award process?

5-210-00 What does this chapter do?

This chapter explains procedures used by us, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and 

Enforcement (OSMRE) to receive, review, and process your application for regulatory 

assistance. These procedures apply to all regulatory program grant and cooperative agreement 

applications.

5-210-10 How long will we take to review your application and award your grant?

We will process complete regulatory grant applications within 60 calendar days of receipt. 

5-210-20 How do we review your application?

The awarding office must take the following actions. Our review may draw upon OSMRE 

programmatic, technical, and financial staff as necessary during the review process: 

A. Determine that the application is administratively complete. See Chapter 5-200 for the 

requirements for a complete application. 

B. Confirm that the requested funds are available.

C. Make the following programmatic and financial determinations. 

1. The project objectives support your approved regulatory program.

2. The proposed activities are appropriate to accomplish the specific program 

objectives.

3. The proposed cost of the grant reflects the amount of work needed to accomplish 

the objectives. This review should consider prior costs for similar program 

expenditures by your program or similar programs. 

4. The proposed cost items and amounts are necessary and reasonable. 

a. Costs must be eligible under Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and 

OSMRE regulations.
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b. Costs must be essential to accomplish program objectives.

c. Costs must be reasonable for this particular grant. Factors to consider for 

reasonableness may include fair market price and regional differences in 

cost.

d. Costs must be allocable to your regulatory program.

5. For personnel costs, determine that you have adequate human resources and 

facilities to accomplish the work under the grant.

a. Determine that the project personnel are qualified. 

b. Consider the following questions.

(1) Are the activities to be performed eligible?

(2) Are the number and type of personnel proposed necessary?

(3) Are the personnel rates reasonable?

c. The pay rates proposed for the grant personnel must be consistent with the 

rates your organization pays for similar activities not supported by Federal 

assistance. 

6. Equipment and property items must clearly demonstrate a need which cannot be 

met with property you already have.

a. Consider the following questions.

(1) How long will you need the property?

(2) Have you considered alternatives to purchasing property, such as 

rental, leasing, and sharing? 

b. You must have an adequate property management system that will ensure 

proper use and accountability for the requested property. Your system must 

be capable of producing inventory reports with equipment description, 

acquisition cost, current condition and fair market value.

7. Travel costs must be for trips which are necessary to meet the program objectives. 

8. The cost items discussed here include general questions we will consider. 

However, we may consider additional questions for a particular application or 

cost. It is important not to just look at each item as a completely separate entity, 
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but rather to see how each item contributes to the successful operation of the 

program. The reviewer must use sound judgment to determine the level and type 

of analysis that is appropriate for the type of work and amount of funding being 

proposed. 

E. For state regulatory Administration & Enforcement (A&E) grants, and any other 

agreements which require that some program costs be met with non-Federal funds, we 

will confirm that you will meet the match requirement.

1. The proposed amount of non-Federal funds must meet the state’s required share 

of the proposed program cost. 

2. A responsible state official must certify that the proposed non-Federal matching 

funds are available for expenditure by your program during this performance 

period.

3. If the amount certified as available is not adequate, or if we are concerned that the 

amount certified may not be available, our awarding office will ask you for a 

specific description of the source of the proposed funds and when the funds will 

be available.

F. Check the System for award Management (SAM) to determine whether your organization 

or officials are debarred, suspended, voluntarily excluded or ineligible for Federal 

assistance.

G. Confirm that you are in compliance with the single audit requirements in 2 CFR Part 200.

5-210-30 How do we process your grant award?

A. Our awarding office will decide to approve or disapprove your application based on our 

review. If we approve the application, we will award your regulatory agreement. If we 

disapprove it, we will send you our reasons or recommendations in writing. 

B. Before the planned award, we will send information about the award to our Office of 

Communications for Congressional and public news release. Our awarding office must 

follow the notification procedure established by the Office of Communications.

C. We must enter and approve the award in our electronic grant system. Our accounting 

system will then update Treasury’s grant payment system to make the funds available for 

you to request a drawdown.

D. We will send you the approved award document, either electronically or in hard copy.

5-210-40 How do we document our review and award process?
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OSMRE must document its programmatic and financial findings and recommendations. The 

following information at a minimum must be available in the official grant file kept by the 

awarding office. We must include any additional supporting information as appropriate for the 

particular application, the recipient, the regulatory program, and the awarding office:

A. Your application as we originally received it, all subsequent revisions to it, and any other 

information you sent us.

B. Records of all meetings or telephone conversations with you about the application.

C. All our correspondence with you about the application or the award.

D. All our internal reviews of the application or parts of the application. We may use a 

checklist to document application completeness. 

E. All resolutions of questions raised during the review process.

F. We must keep all records or explanations about the timing of the award process, especially 

for any time period when the awarding office could not process the grant award because 

they were waiting for actions outside our control, such as your responses or availability of 

funds.