Acquisition of National Environmental Health Training Services

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), intends to award a sole source Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) located at 720 S. Colorado Boulevard, Suite 1000N, Denver, CO 80246-1904 for the acquisition of National Environmental Health Training Services. The period of performance for this procurement is 60 months with a contract ceiling amount of $12M. Task orders issued under the contract shall be issued on a firm-fixed price basis. The statutory authority for this sole source acquisition is 10 U.S.C 2304(c)(1) in accordance with FAR Part 6.302-1(a) - only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy the agency requirement. The NAICS code for this procurement is 611710, Educational Support Services, with a size standard of $14M. The purpose of this acquisition is to train current environmental public health professionals and prepare them for accreditation in the area of environmental health. The accreditation of local health departments is a key objective for CDC in improving public health practice in the United States. Environmental health is an important component of public health. In order to meet the goals established by CDC in the "Healthy People 2020" document and the "Public Health Workforce 21st Century Agenda", CDC must establish certification standards to ensure that the environmental health practitioners have the technical competencies and skill sets necessary to do their jobs. Therefore, CDC is required to have an environmental health training curriculum in place to teach the core competencies necessary for successful environmental health practice. NEHA is only known organization capable of providing the nationally recognized professional credentials needed to train environmental health practitioners. The environmental health educational and certification services required for this acquisition are highly complex and diverse. The contractor is required to have the capability to do professional credentialing and/or certification for environmental health professionals in the following programs: Registered Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian (REHS/RS); Certified Installer of Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems (CIOWTS); Healthy Homes Specialist Credential (HHS); Certified Professional - Food Safety (CP-FS); Certified Environmental Health Technician (CEHT); Registered Environmental Technician (RET); Registered Hazardous Substances Professional (RHSP); Registered Hazardous Substances Specialist (RHSS) and NEHA's National Radon Proficiency Program. NEHA solely has nationally recognized credentials and certifications to meet the requirements of this acquisition. Additionally, NEHA is widely recognized within the profession among environmental health practitioners as the benchmark standard for training environmental health personnel. Environmental health is a diverse multi-disciplinary field. NEHA can provide these unique services in a timely and efficient manner. In order to have a viable mechanism that meets CDC's need to test for and certify environmental health workforce skills, the contractor must have the immediate capacity to offer certification through a professional credential that can furthermore link all the skills and knowledge necessary for that credential specifically to the training curriculum. NEHA has a fully developed program that can be immediately utilized in support of the Government's requirements. The REHS/RS credential is unique. It is the only environmental health credential in the United States that tests for and certifies competence in the vast array of disciplines that comprise environmental health. The practice of environmental health requires a knowledge base involving a large range of possible adverse environmental exposures that occur in air, land, and water. Moreover, the detection and prevention of these adverse effects in a human population can vary depending on the type of exposure and the environmental media that carries the contaminate. This makes having the REHS/RS credential essential when training and testing environmental health professionals and certifying the knowledge, skills and competencies they possess to insure quality programs and practice. NEHA is the only organization that can provide the REHS/RS credential. A credential signifies that an environmental health practitioner has mastered a body of knowledge and has acquired sufficient skills and experience to competently perform work in the environmental health field. NEHA's extensive environmental health training program and credentialing program has as its cornerstone this nationally recognized REHS/RS credential. The process of developing, validating, and maintaining this type of credential is very complex and time consuming. There is no other professional organization that could develop or provide a comparable credential within the time frame that it is needed to meet CDC's requirements. NEHA has a fully developed program that can be immediately utilized in support of this program. NEHA's ability to immediately provide this credentialing capability in all of the education and training services required for this acquisition will assure CDC of its ability to meet its workforce training goals. Meeting these workforce training goals is critical in assuring the timely implementation of the larger local health department accreditation effort. The continuity NEHA provides with their credentialing programs to the practitioners in the field of environmental health will substantially increase their capacity to respond to intentional and unintentional outbreaks of environmental public health related illness and disease. It is through the device of a credential that a community gains assurance that the workforce handling this responsibility is competent, properly trained, and equipped to carry out their responsibilities. Nationally recognized in scope, NEHA's credential program validates their understanding of this as well as their specialized knowledge and skill related to environmental public health and prevention. As a result of this synopsis, no competitive solicitation will be posted on FedBizOpps. We will issue only one solicitation to the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). However, all responsible sources that believe they can meet these requirements may submit their capabilities/qualifications statement to provide the services to Leslie Jones via email ONLY at contact@example.gov with the solicitation number 2013-N-15035 referenced in the subject line NO LATER THAN May 4, 2013. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed action will be based on responses to this notice and are solely within the discretion of the Contracting Officer. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.