The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Remedial Action Contract (RAC) for remedial services including various engineering services such as designing remedial actions, enforcement support including oversight, remedial investigations and feasibility studies, at sites located within the six New England states. This requirement has orders funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). Due to EPA's decision to use ARRA funds on the existing EP-S1-06-03 contract and the unanticipated increase in workload/funding as a result of this ARRA work, the request to increase specific Contract Line Items has become necessary. This action will result in a modification to increase the Base Period Contract Line Item Numbers (CLIN) 002 - Subcontracting Pool and 003 - Other Direct Costs (ODC), which will result in a Contract Ceiling increase for the Base Period. The anticipated requested Subcontract Pool amount is $6,088,592 and the ODC amount is $1,240,573. This action will increase the total Base Period by $7,329,165 to $64,816,837, which is necessary to continue to provide the critically needed services under this Remedial Action Contract through the Base Period. Also, the increase will allow services to continue without interruptions to the day to day operations of this contract. Without an increase for the two line items, progress will be severely impeded on a key ARRA construction task order and severely impact ARRA outlays. Additionally, there will be insufficient capacity to complete the ARRA project/task order and continue existing work on other task orders for the duration of the Base Period, including a remedial action task order utilizing the same technology as the ARRA funded Site.

This unusual and compelling circumstance of the increase in work load and funding from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act has occurred during the final eighteen months of the Base Period (5 years) of this contract. This request to increase CLIN's 002 and 003 will allow Region 1 to continue with the mission to protect the environment and to meet ARRA goals and objectives.

The statutory acceptance permitting other than full and open competition for this requisition is 41 U.S.C 253 (c)(2), Unusual and Compelling Urgency, as implemented by paragraph 6.302-2 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).

The justification for other than full and open competition document will be posted after issuance of this modification in accordance with FAR 6.305.