; or (B) that— (i) reduce the magnitude and duration of impacts of current and future weather events and natural disasters to a project; or (ii) have the absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and recoverability to decrease project vulnerability to current and future weather events or natural disasters. (b) Establishment (1) In general The Secretary shall establish a grant program, to be known as the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation grant program or the PROTECT grant program . (2) Purpose The purpose of the program is to provide grants for resilience improvements through— (A) formula funding distributed to States; (B) competitive planning grants to enable communities to assess vulnerabilities to current and future weather events and natural disasters and changing conditions, including sea level rise, and plan infrastructure improvements and emergency response strategies to address those vulnerabilities; and (C) competitive resilience improvement grants to protect— (i) infrastructure assets by making the assets more resilient to current and future weather events and natural disasters, such as severe storms, flooding, drought, levee and dam failures, wildfire, rockslides, mudslides, sea level rise, extreme weather, including extreme temperature, and earthquakes; (ii) communities through resilience improvements and strategies that allow for the continued operation or rapid recovery of surface transportation systems that— (I) serve critical local, regional, and national needs, including evacuation routes; and (II) provide access or service to hospitals and other medical or emergency service facilities, major employers, critical manufacturing centers, ports and intermodal facilities, utilities, and Federal facilities; (iii) coastal infrastructure, such as a tide gate, that is at long-term risk to sea level rise