Participating in the Exchange Network

1. Participating in the Exchange Network Karl Alvarez National Exchange Network Program Manager / Tribal Liaison September 9, 2009

3. Who Participates in the EN? 50 States / 56 Tribes / 5 Territories have received funding to participate in the Network 50 States / 8 Tribes / 1 Territory have exchanged data via a node or node client on the Network EPA Central Data Exchange (CDX) Technical Assistance Program Office support Performance Measurement Environmental Council of the States Governance Support National Congress of American Indians Tribal Baseline Survey

4. What does the EN Accomplish? Yurok Tribe: “Sharing Data for a Healthy River” Intrastate data sharing in Pennsylvania Integrating data from 84 local agencies and 140,000 facilities in California Water Quality Exchange (WQX) Homeland Emergency Response Exchange (HERE) Climate Change / Greenhouse Gas Emissions TRI Data Exchange Hurricane Ike Response

5. How Does the EN Accomplish This? Shared Services Nodes and Infrastructure Data Standards and Metadata Data flows and data publishing NEIEN grants program

6. EN Grants Program in FY 2010 $10 Million requested for FY 2010 10% minimum award to tribes Applications deadline: November 20, 2009 Review Panel in January Funding notifications to be sent in March 2010 Finalized awards to be completed in August 2010

7. What are the Priorities of the EN? Stronger Decision-Making Improved data quality Increased timeliness Returns on Investment “Build once, use many” Data integration Broader Access Inter- and Intra-Tribe exchanges of environmental data Tribe-to-Tribe and public access to broader data sets Timely data to assist first responders and local organizations

8. How Can the EN Help Tribes? Access to environmental and health information Provide evidence to Congress to obtain needed funds to address environmental issues Share information with other agencies Compliance with federal regulations

9. Opportunities for Tribal Participation Tribes have significant business drivers which may encourage Network participation Facility and geo-spatial data sharing Protection of cultural assets and lifeways Tribal program implementation Tribes can come into the Network at various levels Network applications Network desktops

10. Areas of Consideration What business need do I foresee for using the Network? What data needs must be addressed given the business need? Has my system solution been built before? Can I build the solution to be usable by others? Am I supporting the over-arching priorities of the Network? Is an Exchange Network Grant the mechanism needed to realize the full potential of the solution? How will I fund needed Operations and Maintenance of the solution?

11. The Continuum of Participation

12. Simplest Solution

13. Node Client Simple Option

14. Relational Capacity Option

15. High Technology Solution

16. Alternatives to Facilitate Participation Consider EPA’s Web Client All Nodes All Exchanges News Channels to Publish Return on Investment Calculator Report from Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Washington Spreadsheet tool, with guide, to assist

17. Frequently Asked Questions Do I want to use an EN Node as a way to emphasize the Government-to-Government relationship between tribes and EPA? How much time do I want to invest in building internal capacity – either IT or Programmatic? If I don’t want to build internal capacity, do I have enough stable, long-term funding to continue to purchase contractual support? Do I want to write another Quality Assurance Project Plan? Is there local or regional technical assistance readily available – tribal, tribal consortia, state, or EPA? Other questions?

18. FY 2010 Solicitation Notice Karl Alvarez National Exchange Network Program Manager / Tribal Liaison September 9, 2009

19. Changes to 2010 SN? New this Year. Newly tiered prioritized activities to receive support in FY 2010. Scoring will also be structured to favor national/regulatory and priority data flows which appear in Tier 1. Stipulation that previous awardees must detail their activities to achieve maximum use of all national/regulatory dataflows by 2012. Formalized emphasis on grant funding support to CROMERR system implementation. Grants threshold reduced to $200,000 for single recipients and $350,000 for partnerships. Two mechanisms to apply: hardcopy and electronic mail. Grants.gov will not be used this year pending improvements. Expanded this Year. Reporting requirements on project activities and unliquidated obligations. Requirement to tie projects to environmental results, not only technology results. Clearer, more objective evaluation criteria to recognize and reward proposed work in areas of programmatic priorities (e.g., national and regulatory system flows). Programmatic Changes this Year. Climate Change / Greenhouse Gas Emissions projects will be prioritized in Tier 1. Legacy systems currently projected for replacement at dates beyond 2012 are no longer be reflected in Appendix A. This currently includes AFS and ICTS. CROMERR and new, Node 2.0-compliant nodes are prioritized in Tier 2.

20. What Makes a Good Application? Evaluation Criteria: Expected Environmental Outputs, Outcomes, and Environmental Results Project Feasibility and Approach Exchange Network Priorities Budget Resources and Key Personnel Past Performance Project workplan and budget should recognize support for Priorities within the Solicitation Notice Project should be of a scope and size to be finished in the two-year project period Reusable project deliverables will score higher than single entity improvements

21. What Makes a Good Proposal? Review Panels will score and rank proposals based on compliance with Solicitation Notice, especially the evaluation criteria. Proposals should demonstrate outputs in support of the strategic targets of the Network If building a flow that already exists, consider using the benefits of previously built systems and schema If building something new, build it a way that it can be used by other EN partners in the future

22. Bottomline If the Solicitation Notice calls on applicants to demonstrate, comply, or commit, provide clear statements If the applicant does not have anything to say regarding a specific element of the evaluation criteria, provide a clear statements that the requirement does not apply with clear justification of the statements

23. EN Points of Contact Karl Alvarez, 202.566.0989, alvarez.karl@epa.gov Edward Mixon, 202.566.2142, mixon.edward@epa.gov Regional Coordinators R1: Ken Blumberg -- R6: Jim Poindexter R2: Bob Simpson -- R7: Maryane Tremaine R3: Joe Kunz -- R8: Josie Lopez/Christine Vigil R4: Rock Taber -- R9: Pat Eklund R5: Gigi Zywicki/Zenny Sadlon -- R10: Dave Tetta Angie Reed, 207.817.7360, angie.reed@penobscotnation.org Robert Holden, NCAI