SOLICITATION NOTICE
B -- Economic Development and Emissions of Radiatively Important Pollution
- Notice Date
- 10/22/2003
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- Contracting Office
- Environmental Protection Agency, Contract Support Section, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, Nw, Washington, DC 20460
- ZIP Code
- 20460
- Solicitation Number
- RFQ-DC-04-00015
- Response Due
- 1/15/2004
- Archive Date
- 2/15/2004
- Point of Contact
- Point of Contact, Rachel Schwartz, Purchasing Agent, Phone (202) 564-1053
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(schwartz.rachel@epa.gov)
- Description
- NAICS Code: 541620 This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6 as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement and accompanying statement of work constitutes the only solicitation. Proposals are being requested and a written solicitation document will not be issued. The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through FAC 01-16. This acquisition is unrestricted. The NAICS code for this procurement is 541620. A maximum of eight firm, fixed price purchase orders is anticipated to result from the award of this solicitation. The total budget for this project is not expected to exceed $200,000 for eight research papers (or $25,000 per paper) and is subject to the availability of funds. All interested parties may submit a proposal of no more than 25 pages. The US EPA has a requirement for original research papers of 5,000 to 10,000 words on the topic of the relationship between socioeconomic forces and emissions of greenhouse gases and other radiatively important emissions, such as sulfur dioxide. Proposals must encompass original research or applications of theory. Papers that propose new theoretical frameworks that seek to refine or elaborate on the "Environmental Kuznets Curve" theory and papers that seek empirical existence of such theories are preferable. Specific topics may include: The role and interplay of various socioeconomic forces such GDP growth, price of energy, structure of the economy, governance structure, fuel resource availability, technological change and diffusion; The immediacy of the gas or pollutant's effect on health and environment; price shocks or other social or economic watersheds; energy use; agriculture and land use; transportation; and the role of environmental policies such "integrated environmental strategies" in shaping alternative development pathways. The EPA has made preliminary arrangements with the Journal of Environment and Development for the publication of the articles as a special December 2004 issue. The offeror shall select one or more topics from the above list and submit for each: 1) A research plan, including a working theory or hypothesis, or a study question relevant to the program, 2) A proposed outline of the paper, 3) Curriculum Vitae of the author, co-author or research assistants, including publication lists; and a firm-fixed price quote for the effort including a break-down of the costs comprising the total price. Awards will be made to the offeror(s) whose quote affords the best value to the Government, technical, price, and other factors considered. The following evaluation criteria will apply: 1) Relevance of the proposal to the project plan; 2) Strength of the research plan; 3) Experience (past performance) of the offeror in development economics, climate change policy and economics, environmental economics generally, and "Environmental Kuznets Curve" work. All technical factors are considered to be of equal importance and when combined are considered more important than price. The offeror(s) selected to receive the award of a purchase order resulting from this solicitation must register with the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database prior to receiving the award. The CCR may be accessed at http://www.ccr.gov. The following FAR provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition: 52.212-1, 52.212-3, 52.212-4, 52.222-2, 52.222-21, 52.222-22, 52.222-25, 52.225-26, 52.222-35, 52.222-36, 52.222-37, 52.225-13, and 52.232-18. The following EPAAR clauses apply to this acquisition: 1552.208-70 and 1552.209-71. All quotes should be submitted via e-mail to Rachel Schwartz at schwartz.rachel@epa.gov or by facsimile to 202-565-2554 by close of business January 15, 2004. Questions regarding this acquisition should be submitted in writing to Rachel Schwartz at schwartz.rachel@epa.gov by e-mail. Telephonic requests for information will not be honored. This requirement will also be announced in the December issue of the Journal of Environment and Development. Statement of Work Background and Purpose Long term analyses of climate change and long term projections of emissions such as those undertaken by the IPCC in its Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) are often based on an underlying assumption of emissions varying with factors such as income, technological change and population. In some cases, and for some pollutants, the relationship between income and emissions is explicit. For example, in many of the SRES scenarios is the assumption that as nations develop, their preference for air quality improvements grows, and hence the presence of SO2 controls increases. In other cases, and for other pollutants, the relationship may be more ambiguous and implicit only. For example, technological progress that accompanies economic development may lead to increases in energy efficiency; if these phenomena are coincident with increasing GDP per capita, then a gradual environmental improvement on a per capita basis may be derived from the data. One relationship between emissions and income that is often discussed in the development economics literature is the inverse U-shaped "Environmental Kuznets Curve" (EKC). The EKC is a graphical representation of a phenomenon behind which there is some empirical evidence ? and much theory ? that as nations develop their emissions increase up to a point beyond which emissions decline while income, or GDP, continues to grow. There are generally two theoretical foundations cited for the EKC phenomenon. The first theory is that as nations' economies transition through the developmental stages of agrarian to industrial to service economies, their emissions naturally peak and decline. The second theory generally hypothesized is that as personal wealth increases, preferences for goods such as environmental quality become more evident and are eventually realized through changes in consumptive behavior and in regulatory actions. In recent years, a number of studies have begun to question the EKC, noting, among other things, that the empirical evidence may not exist in many cases; that the assumptions regarding the chronology and the functional form of the income-emissions relationship can have substantial effect on the shape and slope of the EKC; that different EKCs are likely to exist for different countries and pollutants; that the direction of causality is itself not clear, and that explanatory variables other than income may be better determinants of emissions trajectories. While EPA does not have an Agency position on the EKC theory per se, part of the purpose of this series would be to refine the environment-development debate, specifically as it applies to long-term projections of greenhouse gases and other radiatively important emissions. Some critiques of the EKC have found that the quadratic form is too restrictive: is there a more robust form to apply or is there no single appropriate function. Other critiques have found that variation across countries is critical for understanding patterns of pollution. If so, what are the key socioeconomic factors driving that variation? In short, EPA's interest does not lie a critique or defense of the EKC theory or of any EKC construction in particular; but in obtaining a sound theoretical basis for long-term projections of radiatively important gases and aerosols. Task The contractor shall prepare a 5,000 to 10,000 paper on the general theme of socioeconomic drivers of radiatively important emissions that encompasses original research or applications of theory. The paper shall be prepared in accordance with the guidelines specified by the Journal Of Environment and Development. For details please refer to: http://www2-irps.ucsd.edu/~jed/INSTRUCTIONS%20TO%20AUTHORS.htm The contractor shall submit the research paper to EPA for review and to the JED for formal peer review simultaneously by June 15, 2004.
- Record
- SN00458119-W 20031024/031023061342 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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