BNUMBER:  B-279924 
DATE:  August 7, 1998
TITLE: Information Ventures, Inc., B-279924, August 7, 1998
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Matter of:Information Ventures, Inc.

File:     B-279924

Date:August 7, 1998

Bruce H. Kleinstein for the protester.
Thomas A. Darner, Esq., and Maria Kavouras, Esq., Environmental 
Protection Agency, for the agency.
Glenn G. Wolcott, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Protest that request for proposals should have been set aside for 
exclusive small business participation is denied where the 
solicitation requirements called for particular technical expertise, 
the contracting officer conducted a market survey from which she 
reasonably concluded that the agency could not expect to receive 
proposals from two small business offerors capable of performing the 
solicitation requirements, and the representative of the agency's 
Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization concurred with 
the decision not to set aside the procurement.

DECISION

Information Ventures, Inc. (IVI) protests the Environmental Protection 
Agency's (EPA) decision to issue request for proposals (RFP) No. 
PR-CI-98-10345, for safe drinking water hotline services on an 
unrestricted basis.  IVI contends that the procurement should be set 
aside for exclusive small business participation.  

We deny the protest.

The solicitation was issued on an unrestricted basis on April 2, 1998 
seeking proposals to provide continued operation of a hotline to 
support various programs authorized by the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 
U.S.C.  sec.  300f to 300j-26 (1994).  Among other things, the 
solicitation contemplates the performance of research and information 
retrieval responding to an estimated 4,000 to 6,000 inquiries per 
month.  Section I of the solicitation statement of work (SOW) notes 
that the technical difficulty of the responses will vary widely and 
requires that the contractor "shall ensure that all responses are 
based on up-to-date and appropriate EPA-approved material."  

The contracting officer states that she received the procurement 
request from EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water in 
January, 1998 and, following routine procedures, forwarded the request 
to EPA's Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) 
for input regarding whether the procurement should be set aside for 
small businesses.  The OSDBU representative requested that additional 
information be sought regarding potential small business sources 
capable of performing the requirements.  Contracting Officer's 
Statement, May 26, 1998, at 1.  
Thereafter, the contracting officer engaged in various research 
activities in order to determine whether the agency was likely to 
receive proposals from two or more small business sources capable of 
performing the contract requirements.  First, the contracting officer 
considered the past procurement history related to this requirement 
for which the current contract had been awarded only 2 years 
previously, and ascertained that only two technically acceptable 
proposals had been received, neither of which was from a small 
business.  The contracting officer also considered a similar 
procurement that had been conducted by EPA for a wetlands hotline in 
January 1997 and again found that no proposals had been received from 
small businesses.  The contracting officer next conducted market 
research using several Internet search tools, including "i-Mart," "GSA 
Advantage," and the "Thomas Register."[1]  The contracting officer's 
Internet search identified some small businesses that operate 
hotlines, but none which appeared to have the specific expertise 
necessary to perform the contemplated contract requirements.  Id. at 
2.

The contracting officer then met with the OSDBU representative, 
described her research activities to him, and advised that she did not 
believe the agency was likely to receive proposals from two small 
businesses that were technically qualified to perform the contract 
requirements.  The OSDBU representative agreed with the contracting 
officer's assessment and, on February 20, formally recommended that 
the procurement be conducted on an unrestricted basis.  Id.; EPA 
Record of Procurement Request Review, Feb. 20, 1998. 

Thereupon, on February 20, EPA published a synopsis of the procurement 
requirements in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD), describing the 
services that would be required and inviting inquiries.  Some 6 weeks 
later, the RFP was issued requesting that proposals be submitted by 
April 30.  No small business sources contacted EPA from the time the 
CBD synopsis was issued until April 17, when IVI first contacted EPA 
to assert that the solicitation should be set aside for small 
businesses.  This protest was filed on April 29.  

IVI primarily argues that because there currently are small businesses 
operating other government hotlines, it was unreasonable for the 
agency not to set aside this procurement for small businesses, and 
maintains that the contracting officer failed to make a reasonable 
effort to identify potential small business sources.  We disagree.  

Contracting officers are generally required to set aside for exclusive 
small business  participation any procurement exceeding $100,000 where 
there is a reasonable expectation of receiving fair market price 
offers from at least two small businesses capable of performing the 
contract requirements, FAR  sec.  19.502-2(b).  A contracting officer must 
make reasonable efforts to ascertain whether it is likely that offers 
from two such offerors will be received.  Mortara Instrument, Inc., 
B-272461, Oct. 18, 1996, 96-2 CPD  para.  212 at 3.  There is no requirement 
that a contracting officer use any particular method to perform this 
assessment, and the required inquiry goes not only to the existence of 
small businesses that might submit proposals, but also to small 
businesses' capabilities to perform the contract requirements.  Id. at 
3-4; FKW Inc., B-249189, Oct. 22, 1992, 92-2 CPD  para.  270 at 2-4.  The 
determination of whether to set aside a particular procurement 
basically involves a business decision within the broad discretion of 
contracting officials, and our review is generally limited to 
assessing whether that discretion has been abused.  CardioMetrix, 
B-271012, May 15, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  227 at 2.

Here, the record reflects the contracting officer's memorandum 
assessment that the type of "technical scientific expertise" required 
under this solicitation was "very different" from the skills required 
to operate various other government hotlines, and her conclusion that 
"there are not two small business sources that are technically 
qualified to do the work required."  Contracting Officer's Memorandum, 
Feb. 18, 1998.  The contracting officer's assessment and conclusion 
are supported by the solicitation requirements.  Among other things, 
the SOW required that:

     The Contractor shall, without prompting from EPA staff, be aware 
     of and be able to provide information contained in:

          --The Code of Federal Regulations Parts 141, 142, 143 & 149

         --The preamble and regulatory sections of relevant Federal    
         Register Notices

         --Current guidance documents and policy memorandums

         --Bi-monthly and Weekly Hotline Reports (1988 to present)

         --Other relevant EPA policy memorandum and directives

         --EPA approved questions and answers and fact sheets on 
          specific topics

         --EPA approved Hotline training materials (See Exhibit 3)
         
         --The Health Advisory Tables, EPA Health Advisories and 
guidance

         --EPA's Public Internet Home Page and the Office of Ground 
         Water and Drinking Water Home Page, as well as other relevant 
         EPA Home Pages such as the Envirofacts Home Page, the Surf 
         Your Watershed Home Page, and the Index of Watershed 
         Indicators

         --Other documents relevant to EPA's drinking water and source 
         water protection programs and policies provided by EPA.

RFP, Attachment 1, SOW  sec.  IV.A, at 1-8.

In short, the contractor is required to possess specialized knowledge 
regarding laws, regulations, and EPA policy which cannot reasonably be 
expected to fall within the capabilities of firms operating other 
types of government hotlines.  Accordingly, we see no basis to 
question the contracting officer's distinguishing of the requirements 
sought here from those performed by other hotline operators, and her 
conclusion that the existence of small business hotline operators in 
different substantive areas did not establish there were two 
technically qualified small business sources that could be expected to 
compete here.  

As noted above, the contracting officer also reviewed the procurement 
history related to this requirement, as well as that of another, 
similar EPA procurement, both of which were conducted within the last 
2 years, and found that no technically acceptable proposals were 
submitted for either procurement by small business concerns.  Further, 
the contracting officer conducted market research using several 
Internet search tools, and that search failed to reveal technically 
qualified small business sources.[2]  Finally, the contracting officer 
received the concurrence of the OSDBU representative that restricting 
competition to small business concerns was not appropriate here.[3]  

In sum, in view of the contracting officer's consideration of the past 
history of this and a similar procurement, along with the market 
research she performed, and the concurrence of EPA's OSDBU 
representative that this procurement should not be set aside, there is 
no basis to conclude that the contracting officer abused her 
discretion in determining to issue the solicitation on an unrestricted 
basis.    

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General 
of the United States

1."i-Mart" is a search tool developed by the Department of Defense to 
assist procurement personnel in performing market research.  "GSA 
Advantage" is an Internet-based tool created by the General Services 
Administration through which federal agencies can review existing 
schedule contracts for various services.  The "Thomas Register" is an 
Internet web site which lists over 150,000 companies in the United 
States and Canada.

2. IVI asserts that Internet search methodology other than that used 
by the contracting officer would have been more appropriate.  We have 
reviewed the record in this regard and do not find the contracting 
officer's approach unreasonable.  See FKW Inc., supra, at 2 (there is 
no particular required method for performing market research to assess 
small business availability).

3. We note that no other small business have, to this date, expressed 
any interest in performing the solicited requirements which were 
synopsized in the CBD in February of this year.