PART 2015 - CONTRACTING BY NEGOTIATION

(a) The contracting officer shall insert the following clauses in solicitations and contracts that are applicable to the requirement:

(1) Section 2052.215-70, Key Personnel in applicable solicitations and contracts;

(2)

(i) Section 2052.215-71, Project Officer Authority in applicable solicitations and contracts for cost-reimbursement, cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost-plus-award-fee, cost sharing, labor-hour or time-and-materials, including task order contracts. This clause and the following alternate clauses are intended for experienced, trained project officers, and may be altered to delete duties where appropriate:

(ii) Section 2052.215-71 Alternate 1. For solicitations for issuance of delivery orders for specific products/services;

(iii) Section 2052.215-71 Alternate 2. For solicitations for firm fixed price contracts, with paragraph (b)(1) of Alternate 1 deleted and the remainder of the clause renumbered.

(3) The contracting officer shall insert the provision at 2052.215-72, Timely Receipt of Proposals in all solicitations;

(4) The contracting officer shall insert the provision at 2052.215-73, Award Notification and Commitment of Public Funds in all solicitations; and

(5) The contracting officer shall insert the provision at 2052.215-74, Disposition of Proposals in all solicitations.

(b) The contracting officer may insert the following provisions in all solicitations as applicable. These provisions may be altered to fit the circumstances of the requirement. These provisions shall be tailored to assure that all sections of the instructions for the Technical and Management Proposal, or Oral Presentation and Supporting Documentation, reflect a one-to-one relationship to the evaluation criteria:

(1) Section 2052.215-75, Proposal Presentation and Format for negotiated procurements for cost type contracts;

(2) Section 2052.215-75 Alternate 1 may be used for all solicitations for negotiated task order contracts;

(3) Section 2015.215-75 Alternate 2 may be used for all solicitations for negotiated fixed price, labor hour, or time and materials contracts:

(c) The contracting officer shall insert the provision at 2052.215-76, PreProposal Conference, in solicitations which include a PreProposal conference. This provision may be altered to fit the circumstances of the requirement.

(d) The contracting officer shall insert the following clauses in solicitations and contracts as applicable:

(1) Section 2052.215-77, Travel Approvals and Reimbursement, must be inserted in cost reimbursement solicitations and contracts which require travel but do not set a specific ceiling amount on that travel. Requests for foreign travel must be submitted to the NRC 30 days in advance of the travel date.

(2) Section 2052.215-78, Travel Approvals and Reimbursement - Alternate 1, shall be inserted in cost reimbursement solicitations and contracts which include a ceiling amount on travel. Requests for foreign travel must be submitted to the NRC 30 days in advance of the travel.

(e) The contracting officer shall include the following provisions in all solicitations for competitive procurements to describe the relationship of technical considerations to cost considerations. The contracting officer may make appropriate changes to these provisions to accurately reflect other evaluation procedures, such as evaluation of proposals against mandatory criteria and bench marking criteria for Information Technology (IT) procurements:

(1) Section 2052.215-79 Contract Award and Evaluation of Proposals, shall be included in all solicitations where technical merit is more important than cost,

(2) Section 2052.215-79 Alternate 1 must be included when proposals are to be evaluated on a lowest price, technically acceptable basis.

(3) Section 2052.215-79 Alternate 2 shall be included where cost and technical merit are of equal significance.

This subpart applies to all contracts awarded on a competitive basis in accordance with FAR part 15. This subpart does not apply to contracts awarded on a non-competitive basis to the Small Business Administration under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act.

(a) The source selection authority is the contracting officer. The contracting officer, acting as the source selection authority, shall select an offer for award based on review of the Source Evaluation Panel's recommendation contained in the reports described in paragraph (c) of this section.

(b) Any cancellation of solicitations and subsequent rejection of all proposals must be approved by the Head of the Contracting Activity.

(c) For all proposed contracts with total estimated values in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold and expected to result from competitive technical and price/cost negotiations, the cooperative review efforts of technical, contracting, and other administrative personnel are formalized through establishment of a Source Evaluation Panel. A single technical member may be appointed to the Source Evaluation Panel to evaluate proposals with the contracting officer's approval. In these instances, the Designating Official may appoint technical advisors (non-voting members) to assist the single technical member. The Source Evaluation Panel should not exceed five members, including the Chairperson except in unusual cases. The Source Evaluation Panel's proposal evaluation report(s) may include a Competitive Range Report and a Final Evaluation Report (to be used when award will be made after conducting discussions), or a Recommendation for Award Report (to be used when award will be made without discussions).

(d) The Designating Official (Office Director or designee) is responsible for appointing a Source Evaluation Panel to evaluate competitive technical proposals in accordance with the solicitation technical criteria. The Designating Official is also responsible for conducting an independent review and evaluation of the Source Evaluation Panel's proposal evaluation report(s) to the contracting officer.

The evaluation factors included in the solicitation serve as the standard against which all proposals are evaluated and are the basis for the development of proposal preparation instructions in accordance with FAR 15.304(b). The solicitation may indicate the relative importance of evaluation factors and subfactors by assigning a numerical weight to each factor. If a solicitation uses numerical weights, those weights shall be stated in the solicitation. The relative importance of factors that are not numerically weighted will be stated in the solicitation. Examples of factors which may not be numerically weighted are conflict of interest, estimated cost, and “go/no go” evaluation factors.

The contracting officer may provide offerors' cost proposals and supporting financial information to members of the Source Evaluation Panel at the same time technical proposals are distributed for evaluation. The Source Evaluation Panel shall use this information to perform an accurate integrated assessment of each offeror's proposal based on all the facts presented to them.

(a) The Division of Contracts and Property Management is the point of contact for the receipt, acknowledgment, and handling of unsolicited proposals.

(b) An original and two copies of the unsolicited proposal as well as requests for additional information regarding their preparation, must be submitted to: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Division of Contracts and Property Management, Mail Stop T-7-I-2, Washington, DC 20555.

(c) The Division of Contracts and Property Management shall enter each unsolicited proposal into the unsolicited proposal tracking system.

(a) The Division of Contracts and Property Management shall acknowledge receipt of an unsolicited proposal, complete a preliminary review, assign a docket number, and send copies of the unsolicited proposal to the appropriate program office Director(s) or designee for evaluation.

(b) The Division of Contracts and Property Management shall be responsible for controlling reproduction and distribution of proposal material by notifying evaluators of their responsibilities and tracking the number of proposals received and forwarded to evaluators.

(c) An acknowledgment letter will be sent to the proposer by The Division of Contracts and Property Management. The letter will provide an estimated date for a funding decision or identifying the reasons for non-acceptance of the proposal for review in accordance with FAR 15.606-1(b) and FAR 15.606-1(c).