LSJ Exceeding SAT_Floodplain Management - FAR Part 8__signed.pdf

Limited-Sources Justification (LSJ) For orders or BPAs exceeding the Simplified Acquisition Threshold

LSJ No:

LSJ No.:

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program, 41 U.S.C. 152(3), Competitive Procedures, and 40 U.S.C. 501, Services for Executive Agencies, and is justified by the following facts and rationale as required by FAR 8.405-6.

1. Agency and Contracting Activity.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the contracting activity and proposes to enter into a contract on a basis of other than full and open competition. The DHS/FEMA, Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA), Floodplain Management Division, is the requiring activity.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

(a) Nature of action: FEMA intends to procure on a sole source basis for the Floodplain Management Division. The contract will include a six(6)-month base period and no option periods.

(b) Name and address of the contractor:

Booz Allen Hamilton, 8283 Greensboro Drive, Hamilton Building, McLean, VA 22102

(c) Contract type: Firm Fixed Price.

(d) Estimated total value:

Period Unit Price Total

Base Year

6 mo.

$498,500

$498,500

Total $498,500

Services were previously awarded under two (2) Hazard Mitigation Technical Assistance Program (HMTAP) task orders::

Contract # Task Order # POP Value HSFE60-15-D-0016 70FA6020F00000023 September 18, 2021 -

September 17, 2022 $520,111

HSFE60-15-D-0016 70FA6020F00000042 September 18, 2021 - September 17, 2022

$2,398,900

(e) Type of funding: National Flood Insurance Fund (Fund 05)

(f) Year of funding: FY 2022.

(g) Solicitation number: NA http://uscode.house.gov/ 22-134

(h) Background information about the requirement. This requirement focuses on three (3) program areas (e.g., 1) the Community Assistance Program – State Support Services Element (CAP-SSSE) transformation, 2) NFIP Integration and Compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and 3) Rulemaking Processes Supporting an Update to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) Minimum Standards) of the two (2) current HMTAP task orders referenced in Section 2(d) above. The Floodplain Management Division is in the midst of several critical multi-year transformation efforts that will change the way the program audits, provides technical assistance, and incentivizes communities to comply with NFIP regulations and reduce flood losses. This generational opportunity will enable the Floodplain Management Division to potentially update the National Flood Insurance Programs’s minimum floodplain management standards to help communities become safer, stronger, and more resilient. In just the past few years, the Floodplain Management Division has significantly increased in scale and complexity as it addresses legislative mandates, Government Accountability Office (GAO) findings, and agency priorities.

3. Description of Supplies/Services.

CAP-SSSE: Continue the design, integration, sequencing, and implementation of transformative new policies and business processes in accordance with the CAP-SSSE transformation objectives and timeline. This includes the implementation of the new CAP-SSSE funding methodology and administration of the required 2023 cycle of the Tiered State Framework (TSF) for all states which begins in September of 2022.

Leverage relationships to engage and equip the ten (10) FEMA Regions and 53+ eligible state/territorial NFIP coordinating agencies to execute new grant requirements while mitigating financial and performance risks. Continue to maintain and improve analytical products and tools that support state grant administration, regional decision-making, and national program performance monitoring and reporting (e.g., the State Activity Planning and Pricing Tool, CAP-SSSE Funding Formula, Tiered State Framework (TSF) Playbook, TSF Assessment Tool). Provide operational support for all annual activities and complex timelines associated with announcing, administering, awarding, and monitoring the CAP-SSSE grant.

NFIP Integration and Compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA):

Continue providing technical assistance, documentation, and reporting needs to successfully complete nationwide (and regional) Section 7 ESA consultation efforts. With the Section 7:

consultations complete, support the integration, sequencing, and implementation of transformative new or updated policies and business processes, in accordance with the ESA compliance Go Big plan. Leverage relationships to engage and equip the ten (10) FEMA Regions and 22,500 NFIP participating communities, plus U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regional offices to execute ESA requirements and support promoting existing and new ESA Community Rating System (CRS) credits. Continue to develop and maintain analytical products and tools that support ESA compliance initiatives, decision-making, and monitoring and reporting; including the Flood Risk and Endangered Species Habitat (FRESH) mapping tool. Provide operational support for all annual reporting activities to USFWS and NMFS.

Rulemaking Processes Supporting an Update to the NFIP Minimum Standards:

Continue to design and facilitate the review of public comments with FEMA subject matter experts to identify transformative and updated rulemaking changes. Provide technical expertise and advisory support on the necessary steps needed to support rulemaking efforts (economic analysis, NEPA, Executive Orders, etc.). Leverage relationships across the agency (e.g., Office of Chief Counsel-Regulatory Affairs Division, FIMA and Resilience Front Offices) to support and equip FEMA in managing and responding to inquiries related to potential rulemaking efforts, including rapidly responding to inquiries from the Biden-Harris Administration.

4. Authority and supporting rationale.

Select one of the circumstances justifying limiting sources pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i) below and demonstrate the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications to provide the required supply or service.

(a) This acquisition is being conducted under the statutory authority implemented by FAR Subpart 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B), “Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.” An award will be made in the interest of economy and efficiency as a logical follow-on to two (2) HMTAP task orders:

Contract # Task Order # POP Value HSFE60-15-D-0016 70FA6020F00000023 September 18, 2021 -

September 17, 2022 $520,111

HSFE60-15-D-0016 70FA6020F00000042 September 18, 2021 - September 17, 2022

$2,398,900

It is necessary to limit competition for new work described herein as a logical follow-on because Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) is the only known source with the ability to provide the required nationwide support without a lapse in these three

(3) mission critical services. Based on proven expertise and past performance, BAH is the only vendor uniquely positioned to provide services to the Floodplain Management Division. While BAH’s current support was procured under the legacy 2015-2020 HMTAP Non-A&E contract vehicle; the scope and scale of the business transformation, change management, and program sustainment services required to support the Floodplain Management Program have grown beyond the scope of that vehicle. Any new vendor would require an unacceptable amount of time and cost to ramp-up to a viable level of performance for these three (3) program areas.

(b) The Floodplain Management Division attempted to extend the current HMTAP task orders but was unsuccessful. The Floodplain Management Division considered including the three (3) program areas into the twelve (12)-month HMTAP task order Statement of Objectives (SOO) under the current Non-A&E HMTAP IDIQ (Contract coverage through September 29, 2022, with options through 2025). However, there are significant potential duplications of costs, potential for unacceptable delays and/or other impacts to external stakeholders (members of Congress, the public, states, etc.), and potential inefficiencies and/or unnecessary cost increases with this approach. Specifically, the new contractor may duplicate costs to review and comprehend the over ten (10) years of internal FEMA discussion and decisions, including but not limited to, development of the NFIP Nationwide Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (NPEIS) and Record of Decision (ROD), NFIP ESA Section 7(a)(1) Conservation Action Program development and adaptive management, NFIP ESA Section 7(a)(2) pre-coordination consultation meetings, and Community Rating System (CRS) pilot studies, Floodplain Species Assessment/ Floodplain Species Plan (FSA/FSP) development and implementation. For the CAP-SSSE program, the new contractor could: duplicate the costs that the government has already paid to develop processes and tools to calculate program performance results from CIS and ND grants data which are necessary for TSF assessments; expend higher than current costs to learn the TSF and funding methodology before they can offer technical assistance to states or regional staff; and expend higher than current costs to learn the Floodplain Management Program performance measure definitions. Without adequate transition and knowledge transfer; the new contractor may have no choice but to rebuild the Activity Planning & Pricing (APP) tool (duplicating the government’s costs) to fully understand and update it, and the new contractor may have no choice but to rebuild the CAP-SSSE funding methodology model to fully understand and use it (duplicating the government’s costs).

The services currently provided by BAH support critical strategic and operational endeavors for the Floodplain Management Program, that if interrupted, represent a high degree of financial, legal, reputational, and mission risk to the agency. Specifically, for the CAP-SSSE program, 1) millions of dollars in unawarded or unused grant funds resulting from a lack of capacity and institutional knowledge necessary to support annual grant administration processes and tools; 2) negative perceptions and public dialogue among stakeholders resulting from stalled or ineffective efforts to finish the CAP-SSSE program transformation that BAH is in the midst of implementing with FEMA; and, 3) unacceptable delays or failure to transform the CAP-SSSE program to a performance-based grant resulting from an ineffective transition/knowledge transfer between supporting contractors. For the NFIP Integration and Compliance with the ESA, the agency remains increasingly vulnerable to litigation resulting from (perceived) violations to the ESA by not identifying the impacts of development from the NFIP on endangered species and their habitat; and, negative perceptions and public dialogue pertaining to the NFIP’s failure to adequately consult on the ESA to meet settlement agreements in agreed upon timeframes. Lastly, for the rulemaking process and update to the NFIP minimum standards, failure to effectively and efficiently progress through rulemaking would prevent the agency from implementing critical regulatory changes to better meet the needs of vulnerable populations and fortify the nation from the growing impacts of increasingly frequent and severe flooding. The agency would fail in an opportunity to strengthen and improve the NFIP minimum standards, which would empower communities to become safer, stronger, and more resilient. It is highly anticipated that extremely negative perceptions would develop, and public dialogue among the entire ecosystem of NFIP stakeholders, including the media and Executive Branch, would result from the fact that the NFIP minimum standards have not been meaningfully reviewed/revised since first implemented over 40 years ago. If BAH services are interrupted, FEMA will not only suffer from negative perceptions and severe reputational risks, it will miss a generational opportunity to update the regulations in a way that will help FEMA better align our standards with the current understanding of flood risk and risk reduction approaches and better protect people and property.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the anticipated order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The contracting officer has determined that issuing the proposed Task Order to Booz Allen Hamilton for the three (3) critical program areas: 1) rulemaking processes supporting an update to the NFIP minimum standards; 2) NFIP integration and compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA); and 3) CAP-SSSE; represents the best value and will result in the lowest overall cost, considering price and administrative costs, to meet the Government’s needs. This order will be placed in accordance with FAR 8.404, “Use of Federal Supply Schedules.” The General Services Administration (GSA) has already negotiated fair and reasonable pricing rates. Discounts to these GSA schedule rates will be requested. Additionally, prior to issuance of the task order, the ordering activity will consider the level of effort and the mix of labor proposed to perform the specific task that is required in order to determine that the total price is reasonable. The contractor’s labor mix and level of effort will also be compared to the Independent Government Cost Estimate

(IGCE).

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

In April and May 2022; Market research was conducted through an Request for Information (RFI) of small and large business pools. Only two (2) small and one (1) large business responded to the the RFI. Following an evaluation of the responses, Booz Allen Hamilton was considered the most highly qualified (See Table below for scoring). There was no confidence that the two (2) small business had the expertise or capability to perform the needed services. One of the small businesses failed to answer all of the questions, or provided an incomplete answer, and, did not propose solutions or provide relevant experience. Likewise, the other small business incorrectly described certain aspects of the CAP-SSSE’s Advance Planning and Pricing tool, which showed a lack of experience and attention-to-detail to request clarification or conduct research, and was not able to cite any experience or technical support in developing or carrying out work products related to National Environmental Policy Act or with similar federal environmental laws.

Questions in RFI Booz Allen Hamilton (LB)

CHEVO (SB) J&M (SB)

Question 1 (Exp w/TSF/APP)

18 8 9

Question 2 (Training/Presentations)

18 14 16

Question 3 (FEMA grants)

18 8 14

Question 4 (Exp w/Env Laws)

16 6 7

Question 5 (Capacity) 18 13 15 Question 6 (Exp w/rule making)

18 7 9

Question 7 (Exp in planning)

18 12 14

Question 8 (Feedback on PWS)

18 8 9

Total 142 76 93

7. Any other facts supporting the limited-sources justification.

(a) The CAP-SSSE program has three (3) objectives to complete their transformation activities which started in 2017. The completion of these objectives will put the program in a “steady state” and complete the grant transformation project. The three (3) remaining activities are: 1) Transition from ND Grants to FEMA GO, 2) 2023-Tiered State Framework (TSF) Assessments, and 3) Implementation of Funding Methodology. All these activities must be worked on or completed in the timeframe for when Booz Allen Hamilton contract support would conclude. Training a new contractor on these processes would not be possible due to the complicated technical information involved in completing these activities.

a. FEMA GO was previously slated for 2024-2025. However, it has been advanced by Grants Program Directorate (GPD) to 2022,with deadlines of:

program design completion by November of 2022, and grantee training beginning in January of 2023.

b. 2023 CAP TSF Assessment timeline policy has been communicated since 2019 to all grantee States. The policy is that a required TSF Assessment is completed for all grantees every three (3) years, the first one was completed in 2020. This assessment is required for calculation of incentive and discretionary portions of grant funding which are distributed in May of each year. Consistent grantee assessments and tracking of performance measures are requirements of Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

c. Implementation of Funding Methodology was not completed in 2022 as scheduled due to the delay of the 2022 National Appropriation approval and continuing resolutions, which did not allow the grant funding increase of $5M to be incorporated using the Funding Methodology as the approval was too late in the grant cycle to communicate these changes.

8. A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration (i.e., limited-sources) before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made. Include a statement of actions taken or that will be taken to increase competition for future acquisitions of the same item/service (e.g., the government intends to revise overly restrictive technical specifications, acquire data rights, or pursue some other means to increase future competition).

The Floodplain Management Division is pursuing a three(3)-pronged approach to contract support services for the long-mid- and short term: 1) A five(5)-year task order through the General Services Administration (GSA) Best-In-Class OASIS contract to provide longer-term, consistent programmatic support services, and expects to have that task order awarded in March 2023; 2) A 12-month HMTAP task order for limited, routine, programmatic services, awarded by October 1, 2022; and, 3) a six (6)-month sole source contract for the three (3) critical program areas that carry the most legal, reputational, and financial risks.

The portion of work that can be segregated for competition are covered in numbers one (1) and two (2) above.

9. DHS intends to post this requirement on SAM.gov pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a)(2)(i).

10. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification.

Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(x), I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which form a basis for the Limited-Sources Justification, are accurate and complete.

Technical Representative/COR Date

11. Contracting Officer Certification and/or Approval *

Pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(ix), I certify that the Limited-Sources Justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief:

Contracting Officer Date *Note: In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(d)(1) for BPAs with an estimated value exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, but not exceeding $750,000, the ordering activity contracting officer’s certification that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of the ordering activity contracting officer’s knowledge and belief will serve as approval.

Note:

Each Limited-Sources Justification must be reviewed and approved by lower level approval(s).

For example, actions over $75 million requiring OCPO approval must be reviewed, approved, and signed by the contracting officer, Component Competition Advocate, and HCA.