F--Intent to Award USGS Vegetation Panel Peer Review to Finalize Macrogroups

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a requirement for a firm-fixed price purchase order for peer review process to finalize macrogroups in support of the National Vegetation Clasification (NVC) Standard. Period of performance will be date of award through one year. The USGS is procuring services to support finalizing the descriptions of the Macrogroup level of the NVC hierarchy. The process will require that full descriptions be drafted for each of the 163 Macrogroups, managing a peer review process and finalizing the concepts and descriptions for induction into the USNVC. The Ecological Society of America Vegetation Panel manages the peer review board responsible for conducting these reviews and would be responsible for convening the national review board members with broad representation of vegetation types and geographic areas represented in the USNVC. The Ecological Society of America Vegetation Panel includes experts in the field of vegetation ecology with decades of experience in collecting, analyzing and synthesizing vegetation data and the Ecological Society of America is in its 98th year as an independent scientific organization responsible for conducting rigorous peer reviews in the field of ecology. The USGS is aware of no other source that can provide the above. Therefore, it intends to make an award to the Ecological Society of America (ESA), unless it is contacted by any who believes they have obtained similar technical expertise and can provide the same service. Vendors are invited to contact the Contract Specialist, Andres Castro via email at [email protected] no later than 12:00 PM EDT, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 with an affirmative answer. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) considers employee signatures to be Personal Protected Information, and therefore all employee signatures have been redacted. By posting this document, the Contracting Officer attests all appropriate signatures have been obtained. The Ecological Society of America is an established scientific organization with a long history of scientific research related to the classification of vegetation. The Ecological Society of Americas Panel on Vegetation Classification has been central to the evolution of the National Vegetation Classification Standard from its inception. Recently the ESA Vegetation Panel has provided the oversight and management of the induction of content into this dynamic standard and has a thorough and complete understanding of the data and process required for the continued development of the National Vegetation Classification types. Members of the ESA Vegetation Panel have established a network of scientist from across the nation who have the expertise to conduct the rigorous review of the type concepts and formal descriptions proposed for induction into the classification standard. No other organization maintains and has access to the scientific expertise needed to manage the review of this highly specialized content. Open competition for this peer review activity would be infeasible because there is no other scientific body organized around the discipline of vegetation classification of U.S. vegetation. An independent vendor that would bring in scientist with no previous knowledge of the years of classification work supporting the US National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) would require an estimated ~$XXXXXXX educational effort to bring that panel up to speed with the content matter. That in turn would require considerable agency staff time to prepare materials, brief the scientists, to ensure the understanding of the context of the FGDC Standard and how the Macrogroups fit with the upper and lower levels of the NVC Standard. The review of the Macrogroups requires expertise from the regions of the country and by necessity a longer and more consistent time commitment of the participants than could be expected for a newly formed panel.