Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Legal Support Services (RRIF)

The Federal Railroad Administration awarded this Master IDIQ on September 22, 2016, for legal advice and assistance to the agency supporting the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan program, but ordering closed on September 25, 2018, making this vehicle inactive for nearly eight years. The vehicle is no longer available for pursuit.

During its brief ordering window, the FRA issued five task orders totaling $1.8 million in combined potential value, with all funds obligated by March 2018. Work covered legal advisory services for individual RRIF financing applications, existing loan administration, and document drafting and negotiation related to direct loans and loan guarantees. Specific projects included passenger rail corridors (All Aboard Florida West Palm Beach to Miami), freight rail rehabilitation (DART Cotton Belt, Merchants Bridge, Port of Everett), and applicant support (Palmetto Railways). All orders used labor-hour or time-and-materials pricing with no set-aside designations.

Task-order values ranged from $48.4 thousand to $787.1 thousand. The customer base split between the FRA and the Department of Transportation's Immediate Office of the Secretary Transportation, with the latter funding three orders worth $610 thousand combined and the FRA funding two orders valued at $1.2 million combined.

Shearman & Sterling LLP captured the largest share at $1.2 million across two orders, followed by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP at $407 thousand and Nixon Peabody LLP at $246 thousand. All five orders closed or were slated for closeout by June 2020, with deobligation language appearing on the two most recent awards, indicating the vehicle had concluded its active program work by early 2019.

The Federal Railroad Administration has awarded a Master IDIQ for legal advice and assistance to the agency for the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan program, including individual financing applications, existing loans, and drafting and negotiating documents related to direct loans and loan guarantees.