This Sources Sought Notice is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The purpose of this Notice is to identify potential qualified Small Business concerns that may be interested in and capable of performing the work described herein. The U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy welcomes all qualified Small Business concerns with the appropriate qualifications and past experience to submit Corporate Capability Statements that demonstrate their ability to successfully accomplish the goals of the project as listed below. The U.S. Small Business Administration does not intend to award a contract on the basis of responses to this notice or otherwise pay for the preparation of any information submitted. Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made; no formal evaluation of the information received will be conducted. The U.S. Small Business Administration may later on issue a Request for Proposals. However, should such a requirement fail to materialize no basis for claims against the U.S. Small Business Administration shall arise as a result of a response to this notice.

Background:

The U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy examines the role and status of small business in the economy and independently represents the views of small business to federal agencies, Congress, and the President. It is the source for small business statistics presented in user-friendly formats and it funds research into small business issues. For more information on the Office of Advocacy, including past research projects, visit http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/847.

The research described in this notice assesses the impacts of federal regulations on small businesses using existing regulatory data from the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Regulations.gov, and/or Reginfo.gov. The Office of Advocacy is responsible for representing small businesses in the United States regulatory process. As part of this statutory mission, Advocacy studies the regulatory environment faced by small businesses and examines the effects of regulation on small businesses. While the accumulation of federal regulations has been a concern of small business owners, the extent and magnitude of these effects are not well understood by policymakers. This research will utilize existing regulatory data to increase the understanding of the regulatory state, and its relation to small business growth and performance.

Objective:

The primary objectives of this research are to:

1. Utilize existing regulatory text data to quantify the amount and burden of current regulations and/or the flow of new regulation.
2. Analyze differences in effects by size of firm, industry, and type of regulation.
3. Develop new measures of regulations for assessing small business impacts.

The Contractor will be responsible for analyzing, in collaboration with Advocacy, existing federal regulatory texts and materials to develop insights into how the regulatory environment affects small businesses. Of critical importance in the project is experience performing textual analysis of large files of regulatory text.
Capabilities:

The Corporate Capabilities Statement shall address the capabilities necessary to accomplish the objective outlined above as well as the additional tasks and characteristics given below:

• Experience and expertise performing textual analysis. Please provide resumes of proposed staff that clearly indicate the proposed staff's relevant qualifications and experience.
• Experience and expertise performing quantitative and statistical analysis. Please provide resumes of proposed staff that clearly indicate the proposed staff's relevant qualifications and experience.
• Experience using regulatory data from the Federal Register (federalregister.gov), Code of Federal Regulations (ecfr.gov), regulations.gov, reginfo.gov, and experience linking databases. Please identify past projects of similar type and scope.
• Experience writing technical reports comparable with articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Please provide resumes of proposed staff that clearly indicate the proposed staff's relevant qualifications and experience.
• Advanced technical training in applied economic analysis and demonstrated experience as subject matter experts. For example, a Ph.D. in economics would be considered acceptable. Please provide resumes of proposed staff that demonstrate these minimum qualifications for key personnel, such as project leads.

Submission requirements:

Any interested qualified Small Business concern should submit a Corporate Capability Statement, which demonstrates the firm's expertise, past experience, and ability to fulfill the objective described above, to the identified Advocacy point of contact listed herein. The submission should not exceed 20 pages, excluding resumes. Descriptions of past performance should include, where applicable, the contract name, the contracting agency or department, the total contract value, the period of performance, and a description of the project and how it relates to the work described herein.

Responses shall also include the following information:
- SBA Small Business Category (i.e. 8(a), HUBZONE, WOSB, Veteran-Owned, Small Disadvantaged Business, Service Disabled Veteran-Owned
- DUNS Number
- Point(s) of Contact for your firm with e-mail and telephone number
- Please identify if your company offers this requirement through the General Services Administration (GSA) and GSA Schedule Number
- NAICS
- Confirmation of being "Registered" and "Active" in www.sam.gov

The submission must be received no later than 0830 MST, June 22, 2017. Any proprietary information should be marked as such. All respondents are asked to certify that the type and size of their business organization is in line with the requirements of this notice.

Any responses to this announcement shall be emailed only to the following contracting representative: John Babcock, [email protected].

Bid Protests Not Available