V3201011_SSJ_for_Posting.pdf

V220T.12 (01/15)

Procurement Request No. V3201013

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

VOLPE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS CENTER (VOLPE CENTER)

OFFICE OF POLICY, PLANNING, AND ENVIRONMENT (V320)

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

A. Description of Supplies/Services. The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) is providing support to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in its Aviation Climate Change Research Initiative (ACCRI), including project resource management and data processing. The specific objective of this work is for the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO), the sole contractor with access to the appropriate CICERO Modeling and Analysis Tools (CMAT), to perform the required Aviation Specific Regional Temperature Potential (RTP) Analysis. The Volpe Center will provide the necessary ACCRI data to CICERO to perform the Analysis described in the Statement of Work (SOW).

B. Market Research. Since ACCRI's inception in 2005 through the present, program members from various international research institutes, universities, and government agencies have continually examined the state of the latest aviation climate change modeling technology through meetings, White Papers, surveys, and publications. In 2009, the Volpe Center recruited eight research institutions fluent in the latest technology in aviation climate change modeling. Through two years of work, quarterly reports were generated on Global Climate Modeling and its advantages and problems, and years after that initial endeavor, up to the present time, the CMAT methodology has been repeatedly identified in aviation climate technology research as showing great promise for future modeling requirements by ACCRI. At the ACCRI Science Meeting in December 2012 in Virginia Beach, VA, CICERO’s CMAT was identified as the only available computation methodology for a required Global Climate Model analysis. This determination and finding has been corroborated through monthly ACCRI teleconferences through June 2016 involving Volpe, the FAA, and the eight ACCRI researchers: The required Aviation Specific RTP Analysis can only be accomplished through the utilization of CICERO’s

CMAT.

C. Supporting Rationale.

(1) Sole Source: Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

(i) Due to the highly international R&D nature of the work inherent to ACCRI, involving international research institutes, international universities, US Government agencies, and foreign governments, all data, computational methodologies, computer hardware and software, and analysis techniques utilized in any studies performed for ACCRI must be accepted by all ACCRI members for any results to be valid. The only computational methodology and tools available for performing the Aviation Specific RTP Analysis, and the computational methodology required for this purpose by ACCRI, is the CMAT, developed by CICERO.

(ii) The CICERO program has contributed personnel and leading-edge computation methodologies to ACCRI since its inception in 2005. Its aviation climate impact analysis methodology contained in CMAT is the only computation methodology available for this unique modeling requirement and is the only methodology accepted by ACCRI for analyzing Global Climate Models. CMAT remains proprietary to CICERO, and therefore the only way the analysis called for in the SOW can be performed is if CICERO performs the analysis.

(iii) Not contracting with CICERO to perform the required simulations would cost ACCRI, the Volpe Center, FAA, and the scientific community in general the opportunity to learn a great deal more about the increasing impacts of aviation on global climate. The Volpe Center risks the following consequences if CICERO is not contracted to perform the work described in the SOW:

No other research institute is known to have developed a computation methodology for Global Climate

Models, and no other institute may be available to develop such a methodology.

The usefulness of all existing studies performed utilizing the CMAT methodology would be in jeopardy without the ability to generate the follow-on analysis required in the SOW.

It is unfeasible to expect the Volpe Center computation methodology experts assigned to this project to be able to replicate on short notice (interim analysis report due in January 2017) the many years of unique experience achieved by the CICERO program; and

The Volpe Center's ability to efficiently plan the logistics of such complex R&D work has been a large part of ACCRI's success in recent years, and it is in the Volpe Center's best interests to provide this additional modeling component, only available through CICERO, to ACCRI.

(2) Brand Name: N/A.

V220T.12 (01/15)

(3) Unusual and Compelling Urgency: N/A.