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NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE This notice is being published in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 5.101 requiring dissemination of information for proposed contract actions. This is a notice of intent to award an increase to the contract-level not-to-exceed ceiling to EPA ID/IQ Contract 68HERH19D0023, with Eastern Research Group, Inc., and is not a request for competitive quotes/proposals.
The statutory authority for this sole source procurement is prescribed by FAR 6.302-1. The Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue a contract modification to increase the not-to-exceed ceiling amount from $4,500,000.00 to $6,200,000.00, an increase of $1,700,000.00, on existing EPA ID/IQ Contract 68HERH19D0023, entitled “EPA Pollution Prevention (P2) Hub and Mission Support,” with Eastern Research Group, Inc., allowing both Firm-Fixed Price and Time & Material task orders. The work associated with this increase in ceiling is an immediate requirement as a result of passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021, precluding the Agency from considering associated levels of effort under the initial competition. This increase to the existing contract is necessary to facilitate the referenced unforeseen increase to work within scope of this contract until July 18, 2023 to provide the Agency sufficient time to complete the in-process competition of the associated scope of work under EPA solicitation 68HERC22R0101.
However, all responsible sources may submit a capability statement demonstrating the ability to provide the services described, which shall be considered by the agency before the intended award date. Interested sources who submit data are responsible for appropriately marking information if it is proprietary in nature. The Government shall not reimburse interested sources for any information provided. No requests for capability briefings will be honored. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract action based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Interested vendors must respond to this notice on or before Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time via email to Gifford.Sean@epa.gov. NAICS Code: 541620 – Environmental Consulting Services.
Background/Requirement: The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 established as national policy the use of pollution prevention as the first choice in addressing pollution at the source. Pollution prevention is any practice that reduces, eliminates, or prevents pollution at its source before the pollution is generated. In passing the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA), Congress found that “(T)here are significant opportunities for industry to reduce or prevent pollution at the source through cost-effective changes in production, operation, and raw materials use. Such changes offer industry substantial savings in reduced raw material, pollution control, and liability costs as well as help protect the environment and reduce risks to worker health and safety.” Congress further found that “…businesses need information and technical assistance to overcome institutional barriers to the adoption of source reduction practices” and that “(S)ource reduction is fundamentally different and more desirable than waste management and pollution control.”
The EPA Pollution Prevention (P2) Program
The EPA Pollution Prevention (P2) Program helps American businesses compete economically through improved environmental performance; helps American manufacturers reduce costs and adopt innovative practices; helps spur, leverage and amplify innovation and reduce the costs of small/medium companies to identify and test pollution prevention innovation; promotes chemical safety; and, helps protect human health and the environment. See http://www.epa.gov/p2. A priority of the P2 Program is to support implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and chemical safety.
The EPA P2 Program is a non-regulatory program (there are no requirements imposed on regulated entities). Instead, as required by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the EPA P2 Program works with businesses, states and other partners to encourage and facilitate adoption of P2 approaches through the development and delivery of P2 information and tools to businesses; technical assistance, the funding and facilitation of P2 innovations; and the sharing and amplification of those innovations so that others can replicate those approaches and outcomes. The P2 Program also helps markets function by providing information to manufacturers, suppliers and purchasers on environmental performance of products and services.
These approaches:
-help American businesses compete economically through improved environmental performance.
-help American manufacturers reduce costs and adopt innovative practices.
-help spur, leverage and amplify innovation and reduce the costs of small/medium companies to identify and test P2 innovation
-promote chemical safety and help protect human health and the environment.
The EPA P2 Program uses a multi-pronged approach to promote chemical safety and pollution prevention, including; implementing the Pollution Prevention Act, Executive Orders, and EPA P2 policies; supporting state technical assistance programs through grants; measuring results; and promoting other related EPA P2 voluntary programs, including Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP), Green Chemistry, Safer Choice, and voluntary environmental standards development for green products. Based on the PPA, the Agency is also charged with integrating P2 into other EPA program offices, state programs, and elsewhere to make pollution prevention the option of choice for meeting the nation’s environmental goals.
The contractor will support the P2 Program in the areas listed below, and with the tasks described in Section 4 of this Statement of Work. Program areas include, but are not limited to, the Pollution Prevention Grant Program; Tools, Measures, and Grant Reporting; Case Studies and Best Management Practices; the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub; Environmentally Preferable Purchasing; Green Chemistry; and Safer Choice. The work will be at the direction of the EPA and the relative focus and level of effort devoted to the tasks below will vary from year-to-year depending on EPA needs, priorities, and available funds.
The Pollution Prevention Grant Program
The Pollution Prevention Act authorizes EPA to issue grants and cooperative agreements to state agencies, state entities (e.g., colleges and universities), and federally-recognized and tribes to support the adoption of pollution prevention by businesses. Grants may fund outreach efforts on the benefits of P2, direct P2 technical assistance (e.g., on-site environmental audits, implementing environmental management system protocols); training for businesses; development and adoption of P2 solutions and innovations; and sharing and amplifying those innovations so that others can replicate approaches and outcomes. Components of the program are issuing a bi-annual solicitation, distributing grant funds, monitoring funded projects, providing technical assistance where needed, and providing economic and technical analysis in evaluating the progress and results of the projects.
Tools, Measures, and Grant reporting
EPA provides on its P2 website several tools and calculators to assist organizations in capturing critical environmental performance outcome measures. These calculators are designed to measure the environmental and economic performance results of pollution prevention activities. For example, the Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculators (EEBC) was developed to assist organizations in estimating the environmental benefits of greening their purchase, use and disposal of electronics.
Measuring results is a critical component of the P2 Grant Program. The Pollution Prevention Act tells the Agency to "establish appropriate means for measuring the effectiveness of the State grants." Accordingly, the P2 Program developed four outcome measures for assessing the effectiveness of State grants: (1) pounds of hazardous materials (inputs and releases) reduced through P2, (2) gallons of water conserved, (3) metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e) emissions reduced, and (4) dollar savings associated with these achievements. Grantees are required to report any results for these measures to EPA. The P2 Grant Program recently revised its reporting system for reporting, tracking and analyzing grant results in a new database system referred to as P2 Grants Plus. The purpose of P2 Grants Plus is to help make EPA’s P2 grant and staff projects and facility-level results more transparent to the P2 Program, to help in developing case studies on a broad scale, and to lay groundwork for sharing this information with more people in the future.
Case Studies and Best Management Practices
Case studies and best management practices are extremely valuable to pollution prevention technical assistance providers and adopters of pollution prevention technologies. Both showcase the effectiveness of pollution prevention projects by quantifying pollution reduction, reduced energy and water usage, realized cost savings, and other benefits. They also can encourage companies to adopt innovative pollution prevention practices by showing real world examples and identifying successful technologies and techniques.
The identification, amplification, and replication of case studies and best management practices is a key component of EPA’s strategy to promote pollution prevention. EPA maintains a list of pollution prevention-related case studies and best management practices on its website. However, EPA would like to improve the content of these materials and the ability of P2 providers and businesses to easily search and locate them. EPA will continue to support the development of case studies through its P2 Grants Program in order to demonstrate the value of grant activities. Grantees regularly develop case studies and them to as part of webinar or workshop sessions to heighten awareness, encourage behavioral change, and champion significant results from their activities.
The Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub
The PPA requires the EPA to establish a source reduction clearinghouse. This clearinghouse serves as a center for source reduction technology transfer, provides outreach and education programs for states to further the adoption of source reduction technologies, and maintains information on approaches to source reduction that is accessible to the public. Currently, this service is provided through the Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (PPIC) on EPA’s website (https://www.epa.gov/p2/pollution-prevention-resources#ppic). The PPIC provides outreach, education and information concerning the national Pollution Prevention (P2) grant programs. The PPIC calendar lists conferences, training, and webinars available to the public.
EPA is replacing the PPIC and the grants program known as the Pollution Prevention Information Network with the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub, which is intended to promote pollution prevention to businesses nationally and support a national network of the recipients of EPA’s Pollution Prevention Grant Program. The Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub will develop, promote, and deliver specific P2 resources, tools, training and services to meet the needs of businesses and technical assistance providers (TAPs). The activities of the PPIC will be incorporated into the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub. The Hub will respond to questions and information requests submitted from businesses, TAPs, EPA and the public. An important tool of the Hub will be an information repository of source reduction information, such as case studies, best management practices, and innovative approaches to pollution prevention. This information repository will expand on, update, and modernize the existing PPIC case study repository, P2 Grants Plus, and other P2 Case Study Databases and collections. Through various media resources (the repository, webinars, list-servs, articles, etc.), the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub will amplify pollution prevention approaches that technical assistance providers can replicate.
Activities of the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub will also include assessing the chemical safety and source reduction information and training needs of businesses and technical assistance providers; developing P2 information resources, training materials or tools to meet those needs; promoting and delivering tools, products and services through training and making P2 resources and tools available online; and measuring the impact of grant activities on adoption of P2 practices. The Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub will follow-up with attendees of trainings and webinars to identify P2 plans or practices that were implemented as a result of the information or assistance provided. In addition, the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub will collect feedback from customers concerning the effectiveness of the information or assistance services provided.
In addition, based on the needs of the P2 Program, the Chemical Safety and Source Reduction Hub may assist with convening TAPs and businesses nationally to promote P2 innovations for amplification and replication, to identify gaps in P2 information or skills, and then identify and/or develop new tools or training to address those needs. The Hub may analyze data to target P2 assistance efforts or evaluate the environmental impact of a given sector. The Hub may develop and deliver tools or calculators that can be used to convert the adoption of a P2 practice into the expected environmental outcomes -- e.g., reductions in hazardous releases and water conservation.
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program
EPA’s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program helps the US Federal government harness private sector innovation by utilizing marketplace standards and ecolabels to identify and procure environmentally preferable products and services. In turn, the program leverages the significant federal purchasing power to prevent pollution, realize lifecycle cost savings, and increase US industry competitiveness. The EPP develops information to shed light on which of the hundreds of non-federal standards and ecolabels represent credible and environmentally sustainable behavior.
With this information, businesses have clear guidance as to what manufacturing practices are considered the most environmentally sustainable, and customers and procurement officials have the credible information they need to identify products that are safer for human health and the environment. This work also supports the P2 Act requirement that EPA identify opportunities to use Federal procurement to encourage pollution prevention.
The EPA’s EPP Program engages in voluntary standards development activities to clearly define environmental performance targets for key product types. The EPP Program works with voluntary consensus standards developers (such as NSF International, Underwriters Laboratories, BIFMA, and IEEE), with industry and other stakeholders in a variety of ways, including coordinating US government and EPA technical input into standards development activities, conducting research to inform standards development efforts, and encouraging non-governmental stakeholders to participate in and gain support for key standards development activities.
The EPP program also provides recommendations for robust, multi-stakeholder developed voluntary standards and ecolabels for use in federal procurement, consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and other as well as other statutory and regulatory mandates related to Environmentally Preferable Purchasing. EPA seeks to provide clear information for federal procurement officials, manufacturers and service providers about which of the many private sector standards and ecolabels should be considered to reduce risk in supply chains and company operations, increase US industry competitive advantage in the global marketplace, and meet federal goals and requirements for environmentally preferable procurement. EPA’s efforts leverage and increase market confidence in existing private sector initiatives that have demonstrated positive, measurable, and meaningful change in the environmental performance of products and services.
EPA develops hand-on tools for procurement officials, to facilitate adoption and deployment of EPP. Additionally, the EPA’s EPP program develops tools for measuring the benefits of EPP, and provides training to federal procurement officials on how to use these tools.
Green Chemistry
Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal. In partnership with the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute® and other members of the chemical community including industry, trade associations, academic institutions, and other government agencies, EPA sponsors the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awardsto recognize chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture, and use.
Safer Choice
The Safer Choice label helps consumers identify products with safer chemical ingredients, without sacrificing quality or performance. Every ingredient in a product with the Safer Choice label has been evaluated by EPA scientists. The Safer Choice Program includes products designed for homes and businesses. Products that carry the Safer Choi
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