Can you expand on the funding restriction around ‘operations and maintenance (O&M)’?

During O&M an asset is in operation and produces the same product or provides a repetitive service. Maintenance is the activities necessary to keep an IT asset functioning as designed. This includes operating system upgrades, technology refreshes, and security patch implementations. Maintenance excludes activities that expand the capacity of an asset or otherwise upgrade it to serve needs different from or significantly greater than those originally intended. Operations are the day-to-day management of assets in the production environment and include activities to operate data centers, help desks, operational centers, telecommunication centers, and end user support services. 

EN grants do not fund operations and maintenance costs because these costs would overwhelm the program's grant resources. Instead, EPA encourages EN partners to investigate the possibility of using media program (air, water, waste, etc) grant funds to support operations and maintenance. EPA understands that operations and maintenance expenditures are of concern to applicants and EPA has tried to address those concerns by leveraging existing Virtual Exchange Services (i.e., virtual node) and open data solutions to minimize the need. (See Appendix A.) New in FY25, EPA programs with opportunity write-ups in Appendices A – C have included, where applicable, options for continuation of funding which may also be helpful for sustainability planning.