Broad Agency Announcement National Defense Stockpile (NDS) Research

AMENDMENT 1

Notice Type: Amendment 1 (One) is to revise and update Broad Agency Announcement (BAA1) Basis Research for FY2024 thru FY2026.

DLA Strategic Materials is charged with maintaining cognizance of worldwide strategic and critical materials supply chain conditions from the source to final assembly, evaluating the capability of these supply chains to support national defense and essential civilian industries and developing mitigation solutions when access to materials are insufficient to provide support for national defense and emergency response. DLA defines its annual research requirements in the National Defense Stockpile (NDS) Annual Materials Plan (AMP) (Title 50 U.S.C. 98 et seq. Section 11(b) (1)) and obtains funding from the National Defense Stockpile Transaction Fund. These planned requirements produce a robust logistics research process addressing areas such as geographic locations of deposits and reserves, mining and refining capabilities, worldwide consumption patterns and the impact of those factors on supply chains that support defense and essential civilian industries. The large number of materials and derivatives that are used in these applications require vast and dynamic research efforts with substantial flexibility to expand, contract and change direction.
DLA Strategic Materials’ need for this BAA stems from emerging and rapidly expanding requirements to restore and stabilize domestic strategic and critical materials supply chains that have been compromised by decreased or abandoned domestic mining and refining activities or lack of domestic reserves within the United States. Most of these requirements are in the form of research of materials and alloys and development of solutions including stockpiling, substitution, and/or conservation. Other emergent requirements come from Military Services, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and Congressional requests for information on the availability of specific materials. These requirements can address virtually any critical or strategic materials topic, and each year generally presents a mixture of new projects and different materials.
This BAA is issued under the provisions of Parts 35.016 and 6.102(d)(2) (i) and (ii) of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which provides for the competitive selection of proposals submitted in response to this announcement. Accordingly, proposals selected for award are considered to be the result of full and open competition and fully compliant with PL 98-369, entitled "The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984." “Domestic” for the purposes of this BAA refers to countries that are “qualifying countries” as defined by DFARS 225.872-1.

This BAA is an expression of interest only and does not commit the Government to make an award or pay proposal preparation prices generated in response to this announcement. The price of proposal preparation for response to a BAA is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resultant contract or any other contract.

No contract award will be made unless funds are available. Prospective Offerors are reminded that only a duly warranted Contracting Officer may obligate the Government to an agreement involving expenditure of Government funds. Only the information provided in this notice is available. No formal solicitation will be issued. The contract type, whether Firm Fixed Price (FFP), Cost Reimbursement, or a hybrid with both cost and FFP CLINs will be determined on a case-by-case basis after receipt of proposals. No award is expected to exceed $250,000. The Government may not pay the full-proposed cost or the Government may pay a percentage of the proposed cost for any future acquisitions under an Broad Agency Announcement (NDS) Research.