U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Program Contract Service Center (3803R), 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460-0001

A -- DEVELOPMENT OF OPTIONS FOR VOLUNTARY AND REGULATORY POLLUTION PREVENTION STRATEGIES SOL BZC024 DUE 101497 POC Melissa Revely-Brown WEB: NOT AVAILABLE, NOT AVAILABLE. E-MAIL: NOT AVAILABLE, revely-brown.melissa@epamail.epa.gov. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing an intent to award for services to which the Government intends to award a firm fixed price contract using the Simplified Acquisition Procedures of FAR Part 13 to Environmental Quality Consultants; 3651 Cherry Bluff Lane; Tallahassee, FL 32312-1001. The EPA is FACNET certified. NO PHONE CALLS ACCEPTED. Two copies of all proposals, for the following statement of work, should be delivered to the following address, (fax/e-mail copies will not be accepted): US EPA; 401 M Street, SW; Mail Code 3803R; Washington, DC 20460 Attn: Melissa Revely-Brown -- HANDCARRY TO: 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW; Bid and Proposal Room -- 6th floor; Washington, DC 20003; Attn: Melissa Revely-Brown -- Due Date: 10/14/97, 1997; -- 2:30pm EST (Any proposal received after the due date will not be considered or opened.) This is a combination synopsis/solicitation for these services and will be the only solicitation issued. Any contractor/vendor able to meet the requirements must demonstrate in writing by the closing date. All responsible sources solicitated my submit a bid, proposal, or quotation, that shall be considered. STATEMENT OF WORK Development of Options for Voluntary and Regulatory Pollution Prevention Strategies 1. Introduction EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) seeks support in its efforts to gain an understanding of potential technically- and financially-feasible options for promoting pollution prevention in manufacturing and processing facilities through process changes. This support will inform the Agency's development of pollution prevention-oriented voluntary and regulatory strategies. II. Background OPPT is engaged in both voluntary and regulatory strategies for promoting pollution prevention (P2). A common area of interest to those working on both voluntary and regulatory strategies is to better develop the underlying connections in rationales between these strategies. In particular, OPPT has sought progressin making the strategic linkages between P2 and its financial benefits a more ftmdarnental driver in both voluntary and regulatory arenas. OPPT's Environmental Accounting Project (voluntary) and its P2 in Regulations efforts (regulatory) are two project areas where OPPT is specifically trying to broaden its strategic options based on the interrelationship between materials flow/process design and the economic/financial benefits of P2. In the Environmental Accounting Project (EAP), its recent strategy development process has produced a key recommendation -- that the additive effects of material management and environmental cost accounting should be demonstrated to determine the true costibenefit of risk reduction through prevention practices. In the Agency's P2 in Regul ' ations effort, its strategy development process has also produced a key recommendation that further development of economic incentives for P2 within regulations should be pursued. Both of these efforts -- EAP and P2 in Regulations, and their recommendations just cited -- have firm support from EPA's senior leadership. OPPT's Environmental Accounting Project, created in 1993, facilitates research, training, and the development of methodologies for highlighting the financial benefits of P2. The Project partners with outside stakeholders to encourage and motivate business to understand the full spectrum of environmental costs and to integrate those costs into decision-making options. Its activities flow from the federal govemment's environmental accounting action agenda developed at a 1993 environmental accounting Stakeholders' Action Agenda meeting in Dallas, Texas. Issues have evolved significantly since that meeting, so in January 1997 the Project began to reevaluate its strategy and develop a new operating plan. The process began with a meeting with environmental management experts and has continued with a dialogue with the 700+ members of the Environmental Accounting Network that the Project facilitates and maintains. The Agency's efforts in P2 in Regulations is supported by a coalition of EPA Office Directors from across the Agency, involving suboffices within the Office of Air; the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances; the Office of Solid Waste; and the Office of Water, among others. Current work is an outgrowth of the prior efforts of the Source Reduction Review Project. That project underscored the need to develop and implement EPA's regulations in a way that promotes P2 outcomes. The continued strategy has been to develop regulatory options that are based on a firm understanding of the P2 process design elements within an industry sector. An expanding area of emphasis is to incorporate economic incentives within the regulatory requirements of these rules that encourage facilities to choose P2 as a primary means of compliance. 111. Objectives As the lead office on both of these efforts -- Environmental Accounting and P2 in Regulations -- OPPT wants to bolster its capabilities to strengthen links between materials accounting/process design elements and economic/financial incentives for adopting P2 practices. Essentially, OPPT has dual objectives for the work under this procurement in seeking to better integrate the elements of process engineering design, managerial accounting, and environmental sciences into its strategy development processes in both these project areas. The following expands these objectives more specifically by project area. . For the Environmental Accounting Project, the main objective is to address a key recommendation that has arisen in the Environmental Accounting Project's recent strategy development process: To demonstrate the additive effects of materials management and environmental cost accounting. The contractor shall advise the Project on industrial facilities' existing practices and technically-feasible possibilities for improving firms' environmental and financial performance via some combination of materials management and cost accounting practices. The contractor shall also support the Project's efforts to document and/or enhance selected firms' materials management and cost accounting practices. For the P2 in Regulations effort, the objective is to evaluate which of EPA's ongoing regulations targeted for pollution prevention are best suited for an integrated approach to developing process design/materials substitution options and economic incentive options for EPA management to consider, and then assist in developing such options. To meet the time demands associated with these efforts, the Agency benefits by having the unique and specialized talents obtained through this procurement. IV. Tasks The contractor shall provide technical support to EPA in developing voluntary and regulatory pollution prevention options. Specifically, the contractor shall perform the following tasks. Additional tasks may be added by the Project Officer within this scope of work through technical directive. Task 1: The contractor shall advise the Envirom-nental Accounting Project in its efforts to demonstrate the additive effects of materials management and environmental cost accounting. Examples of the required services include: The contractor shall: Review and provide input to the Environmental Accounting Project's ongoing efforts to identify and document best corporate practices of linkages between materials management and cost accounting practices. Review and provide input to Envirorunental Accounting Project efforts to develop case studies that document and/or enhance selected firms' materials management and cost accounting practices. This work shall include, but not be limited to: Reviewing and providing input to the development of the case study plans. Conducting site visits to participating facilities to assure applicability of EPA case study plans. Educate EPA staff on the practical application of materials accounting and other pollution prevention techniques, implications regarding their application at the facility level and other technicalconsiderations that must be understood to ensure the success of EPA efforts. Accompany EPA staff on a facility tour when a purpose of the tour is to gain a better understanding of the facility's production processes. Task 2: EPA has developed a list of rulemaking activities and related programmatic activities for which the Agency has decided to incorporate pollution prevention options. EPA will review this list with the contractor to select one or several that will benefit most from the unique contributions to be made by this contractor, These contributions include unique experience with facilities under review, especially in evaluating pollution prevention options with them; experience with closely related facilities that can be easily transferred to those under review; and accessibility to facilities that will allow for the development of effective pollution prevention options. The contractor shall meet with EPA to review these activities in detail melding perspectives for the benefit of pollution prevention in these regulations. From these discussions, EPA will define specific activities and a set of deliverables for the contractor, expressed as technical directive. Technical direction will be issued in writing or confirmed in writing within 5 calendar days after verbal issuance. A copy will be forwarded to the Contracting Officer. V. Schedule/Deliverables: The contractor shall submit all deliverables as specified by the Project officer as noted above. VI. General Requirements: The contractor shall communicate by telephone with the Project Officer at least biweekly to discuss progress. In preparing documents, the contractor shall use WordPerfect 5.1 or 6.0, unless otherwise directed. All electronic media materials delivered to the agency shall be provided on 3 " diskettes. All written materials shall, to the extent possible, be double-sided and shall be delivered in reusable/recyclable envelopes. The duplication of more than 5,000 copies of a single page or 25,000 or more totalimpressions of a multiple-paged document is considered "printing" and, therefore will be prohibited. This procurement is not expected to involve any of the following activities: environmental measurements statistical surveys or data collection using statistically-designed survey instruments legal services the transfer of government property special reporting requirements the leasing of motor vehicles testing of human subjects acquisition of membership in associations the use of special employees VII. Conflict of Interest The contractor shall identify whether any potential conflict of interest exists for any part of the work assignment. (0266)

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