AMPO - Sole Source - Transportation and Air Quality Analysis

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) intends to award a sole source purchase order to the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) to provide services for the formation and implementation of the conformity provisions in the Clean Air Act and the management of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement in 23 U.S.C. AMPO has formed and implemented the Air Quality Work Group. As of 2012, membership in their work group consists of 12-15 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO). Over the years, the work group member MPOs have had provided valuable insight to address many transportation and air quality related issues, to include the implementation of the transportation conformity regulation, transportation reauthorization, and new regulatory analytical tools and models. AMPO is a nonprofit organization established in 1994 to serve the needs and interests of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in implementing Federal highway and transit statutes requirements, as a condition for spending Federal highway or transit funds in urbanized areas. MPOs are designated to be responsible for planning, programming and the coordination of Federal highway and transit investments in urbanized areas. AMPO, through its organization, technical assistance and training, offers its member MPOs a forum for transportation policy development and coalition building. Of the total of 387 MPOs nationwide, 210 of the MPOs are AMPO members. AMPO proactively communicates regularly with all MPOs through email, publications, conference, and outreach regardless of whether they are AMPO members. Through this established communications network, AMPO has the ability to recruit MPOs to participate in the workgroup in the most efficient, but knowledgeable manner. Through the AMPO members, AMPO successfully brought to FHWA and EPA's attention on the challenges that the MPO facing in implementing EPA's new model, that successfully convinced EPA to extend the grace period for the model implementation. No other organizations can match the communications network that AMPO has developed and used so effectively. As such, FHWA found that AMPO is uniquely qualified for this requirement. The proposed action is for technical services which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive proposals. All responsible sources may submit a response identifying their interest and capability to respond to this requirement. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. This is a Simplified Acquisition and the anticipated award date is in June, 2013.