Federal Funding Intelligence Brief (July 15, 2026)

Welcome to Bradley's Funding Flows, our update on some of the latest federal funding opportunities. We highlight newly released programs, as well as upcoming opportunities on the horizon, giving you a clear, timely view of where federal dollars are flowing. Our goal is to keep you informed and ahead of the curve so you can identify, prepare for, and pursue funding opportunities that align with your priorities. If you’re interested in learning more about any of these opportunities, feel free to reach out. We’re happy to talk through strategy, timing, and next steps to help position you for success.

Note: This is a lighter update for brand-new funding notices. Most of the large FY2026 infrastructure-era competitions were released and closed earlier this spring, but it is a consequential week on policy, with the government-wide grants rulemaking comment period closing today. You may also notice that some opportunities below carry relatively tight or rolling timelines. We’ve included them to provide visibility into the broader funding landscape and highlight the types of opportunities currently being released, even if immediate pursuit isn’t feasible.

TOP OPPORTUNITIES THIS WEEK

Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III — Domestic Energy Financing

(U.S. Department of Energy)

• Total Funding Available: On April 20, 2026, the president issued five DPA Title III determinations covering grid infrastructure and supply chains, large-scale energy infrastructure, natural gas and LNG, petroleum, and coal. DOE has begun deploying funds, including up to $500 million announced June 4 for coal generation value chains and a rail-served marine export terminal, with additional program design underway.
• Award Size: Varies by instrument. Title III authorizes direct purchases, purchase commitments, loans, loan guarantees, and cost-share arrangements; a financing toolkit rather than a single grant. Applicants should expect large, project-scale transactions.
• Deadline: Not yet announced. DOE must still issue RFIs, solicitations, and NOFOs and identify appropriated funds before financing can flow. Core DPA authorities currently sunset on September 30, 2026, absent reauthorization, which sharpens the timeline.
• Overview: The determinations declare each energy sector “essential to national defense,” unlocking expedited Title III incentives to expand domestic production capacity and harden supply chains. This is one of the most significant new federal financing lanes of 2026 for energy and infrastructure stakeholders.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Expanding or reshoring production of grid equipment and components; large-scale generation and energy-related infrastructure; natural gas, LNG, and petroleum logistics; and supporting supply chains for critical energy inputs, delivered through purchase commitments, loans, guarantees, or cost-share.
• Ideal Applicants: Utilities and grid-equipment manufacturers, energy developers, LNG and midstream companies, transformer and electrical-component producers, and their tier-one suppliers with credible domestic capacity-expansion plans.

DPA Title III — Expansion of Domestic Production Capability and Capacity, Open FOA (U.S. Department of Defense/Air Force Research Laboratory)

• Total Funding Available: Varies by individual “call.” This is a standing, open funding vehicle rather than a fixed pool; specific dollar amounts are set when AFRL issues targeted calls against submitted white papers.
• Award Size: Project-dependent, structured as Title III agreements (cost-share, purchase commitments, and related instruments). Terms should be confirmed in the applicable call.
• Deadline: The FOA remains open for white-paper submissions on an ongoing basis and was recently extended to an 84-month window. Early white papers position a company for future calls; in practice, the operative deadline is being in the pipeline before a call is issued.
• Overview: AFRL’s Title III program builds and sustains domestic and dual-use industrial capacity for defense-critical materials and technologies by de-risking production scale-up. It is a preferred pathway for companies whose products matter to national security supply chains.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Establishing, expanding, or modernizing U.S. production capability for defense-relevant materials, components, and advanced-manufacturing processes, including qualification, tooling, and capacity that private capital alone will not underwrite.
• Ideal Applicants: Manufacturers, materials and chemical processors, microelectronics and advanced-materials firms, and dual-use technology companies with a defensible domestic scale-up roadmap and clear defense or commercial demand signals.

Water Sector Resilience Funding & WIFIA/SWIFIA Financing

(U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Federal Emergency Management Agency)

• Total Funding Available: EPA has indicated that approximately $11 billion in flexible WIFIA financing is currently available for eligible water infrastructure projects. Recent WIFIA and SWIFIA notices cited approximately $6.5 billion in WIFIA credit assistance and $550 million in SWIFIA credit assistance, with additional financing availability dependent on program demand and appropriations. Competitive resilience grant funding varies by program.
• Award Size: WIFIA can finance up to 49% of eligible project costs, and in certain cases up to 80% for small communities. Loans commonly range from tens of millions to several hundred million dollars. EPA has also announced fee waivers for communities of 25,000 or fewer in FY2026 and FY2027, potentially saving small communities up to $200,000 in application and credit-processing fees.
• Deadline: WIFIA letters of interest are accepted on a rolling basis. EPA’s water-sector resilience funding resources also identify FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program as a key resilience funding pathway, with BRIC applications due July 23, 2026. Applicants should confirm both federal and state-level deadlines, as state-administered resilience programs often require earlier internal submissions.
• Overview: EPA’s water infrastructure toolkit combines long-term, low-cost credit assistance through WIFIA/SWIFIA with related federal resilience funding opportunities that can help drinking-water, wastewater, and stormwater systems prepare for natural hazards, extreme weather, drought, cyber threats, and other disruptions. The current funding environment places particular emphasis on small, rural, and underserved systems with urgent infrastructure and resilience needs.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Eligible uses may include drinking-water and wastewater treatment, transmission and distribution systems, stormwater management, water reuse and recycling, desalination, aquifer recharge, drought mitigation, energy-efficiency improvements, cybersecurity upgrades, and resilience improvements that reduce risk to critical water infrastructure. WIFIA financing may also be layered with State Revolving Fund dollars, municipal bonds, and other federal or non-federal sources.
• Ideal Applicants: Municipal water and wastewater utilities, regional water authorities, special districts, tribal water systems, public-private partnerships, and small or rural communities with major capital needs, resilience vulnerabilities, or shovel-ready water infrastructure projects.

FEMA Preparedness Grant Suite — EOC, HSGP, and Nonprofit Security (U.S. Department of Homeland Security/FEMA)

• Total Funding Available: Set by the FY2026 NOFOs and state allocation tables. The Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) provides $300 million nationally; the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Program are funded per their respective FY 2026 notices.
• Award Size: Varies by program and state allocation. Most HSGP and NSGP dollars flow as subawards through state administrative agencies (SAAs).
• Deadline: EOC applications are due July 15, 2026; HSGP and NSGP applications are due July 24, 2026. SAA internal deadlines are typically earlier and should be confirmed with your state now.
• Overview: FEMA’s core preparedness programs fund terrorism prevention, emergency-management capacity, EOC construction and interoperability, and security hardening for high-risk nonprofits. We flag these as near-term deadlines rather than new releases; the window to act is this week.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Planning, organization, equipment, training, exercises, EOC construction or upgrades, physical- and cyber-security hardening, access control, surveillance, and communications. Applicants should review restrictions on covered telecommunications equipment and covered foreign-made unmanned aircraft systems.
• Ideal Applicants: State and local governments, emergency-management and public-safety agencies, and eligible high-risk nonprofits, including religious institutions, private schools, cultural centers, and healthcare and social-service organizations.

Critical Minerals and Materials — Byproduct Recovery and Battery Materials NOFOs (U.S. Department of Energy)

• Total Funding Available: Program-dependent. The Mines & Metals byproduct-recovery NOFO (DE-FOA-0003583) is funded with up to approximately $275 million in infrastructure-law dollars; the Battery Materials Processing and Manufacturing NOFO (DE-FOA-0003585) and the CMEI Critical Minerals & Materials Accelerator carry their own ceilings and cost-share.
• Award Size: Multimillion-dollar cooperative agreements with cost-share, ranging from pilot- to commercial-readiness scale. Specific ranges should be confirmed per NOFO in DOE eXCHANGE.
• Deadline: Varies by opportunity and topic. Several windows and modifications are active. Applicants should monitor DOE eXCHANGE for concept-paper and full-application dates, amendments, and teaming lists.
• Overview: DOE’s critical-minerals portfolio funds domestic processing, refining, separation, recovery, and manufacturing of materials essential to energy, defense, and advanced manufacturing — a direct play on supply-chain resilience and reshoring.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Prototype and pilot-scale processing; separation, refining, recycling, and recovery, including from mine waste and other secondary sources; byproduct recovery at existing industrial facilities; and engineering, equipment, testing, and demonstration.
• Ideal Applicants: Manufacturers, materials processors, mining and rare-earth firms, chemical and refining companies, national laboratories, universities, and industry consortia with credible commercialization pathways.

USDA Rural Development — Rolling Infrastructure and Business Programs

(USDA Rural Development)

• Total Funding Available: Program-dependent. Congress enacted roughly $4.1 billion for rural development in FY2026, about level with FY 2025. Community Facilities, Water & Waste Disposal, and Business & Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loans accept applications on a rolling or recurring basis.
• Award Size: Ranges widely by program, from technical-assistance grants to large infrastructure loans and guarantees supporting rural utilities, facilities, and business expansion.
• Deadline: Rolling and continuous for the programs above. Note: the FY2026 RBDG and REDLG competitive windows closed June 30, and the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant NOFO was rescinded April 15 pending a rewrite (REAP guaranteed loans remain active).
• Overview: For rural clients, the actionable pathways right now are the rolling loan-and-grant programs rather than the closed competitive rounds. These remain workhorses for rural infrastructure, community facilities, water systems, and business growth.
• What Funding Can Be Used For: Essential community facilities; drinking-water, wastewater, and stormwater systems; and business start-up, expansion, and job-creation financing in communities of 50,000 or fewer.
• Ideal Applicants: Rural local governments, tribes, nonprofits, cooperatives, rural utilities, and economic-development organizations — often best packaged under the Strategic Economic & Community Development (SECD) priority for a scoring advantage.

SUMMARY

The defining development this week is policy, not new money. OMB and roughly 40 grantmaking agencies have proposed the most sweeping rewrite of the government-wide grants framework (2 CFR Part 200) since 2013, and the public comment period closes today, July 13, 2026 (docket OMB-2026-0034). The proposal would reclassify the framework from “guidance” to binding regulation, add a pre-issuance political-appointee review of discretionary awards, and create a broad “discretionary termination” authority allowing agencies to end awards that no longer effectuate program goals, agency priorities, or the national interest. Nearly 49,000 comments have been filed, and Senate Democrats sent a July 1 letter urging OMB to rescind the rule; OMB is targeting an October 1, 2026, effective date applying to new FY2027 awards. For organizations with active or pipeline federal awards, this is the moment to weigh a comment and to begin stress-testing project framing against “agency priorities” and “national interest” language.

A second theme is the rise of the Defense Production Act as one of the most powerful federal financing engines of 2026. With energy-sector determinations in April and initial coal awards in June, DOE is standing up Title III lanes for grid, energy, and supply-chain capacity, while AFRL’s standing Title III FOA remains open for defense and dual-use manufacturers. Because these programs are being designed now, early agency engagement and well-timed white papers are where advisory value is highest, and the September 30 DPA sunset adds urgency and makes reauthorization a key item to watch.

More broadly, federal priorities continue to concentrate around energy dominance, domestic manufacturing and critical-minerals supply chains, advanced nuclear, AI-driven power demand, and public safety, with financing tools such as loans, guarantees, and purchase commitments increasingly deployed alongside traditional grants. Near-term deadlines remain a factor: FEMA’s preparedness suite closes this week and next, and applicants that can demonstrate readiness, measurable outcomes, strong partnerships, and clear alignment with these priorities remain best positioned.

If you’re interested in pursuing any of these opportunities or identifying others aligned with your priorities, our Governmental Affairs team is well-positioned to help. We work closely with clients to navigate the federal funding landscape, develop competitive applications, and engage directly with agency and congressional stakeholders to maximize success, including a fast read on how the pending grants rule could affect your current or planned awards.