The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to negotiate on a sole source basis with Reed Elsevier, Inc. 1150 18th Street NW Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036-843, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), soliciting from a single source, to purchase a specialized legislation and regulations information service, StateNet, to monitor, process, and transmit proposed State regulations from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In order to comply with NIST counsel recommendation (May 2004) and in order to fulfill the United States' World Trade Organization (WTO) Member obligation under the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT), NIST-NCSCI (acting in its capacity as the U.S. WTO TBT Notification Authority) is required to notify the World Trade Organization of changes in U.S. technical regulations and conformity assessment rules at the Federal and sub-Federal (State) level.

This comprehensive and searchable electronic tool is required to accomplish state-level monitoring because:
* although some states provide electronic access to regulatory information, over 60 websites would need to be monitored daily for state regulatory information.
* not all of the states' regulatory information is available electronically, multiple subscriptions to paper registers would be required (with costs for subscriptions, cost of time spent searching for relevant items, cost of filing and storing information for future use).
* all states, DC, and the Federal Register could be monitored with one tool.
* the service is internet based with unlimited access.
* contains full texts of all regulations and needed for notifications.
* is updated daily.
* is Searchable.
StateNet is the only legislative and regulatory service that currently provides screening and reporting services in addition to customer access to the database. Therefore this requirement must be a sole source requirement. Writtten responses to this Notice of Intent shall contain sufficient documentation to establish a bona fide capability to fulfill the requirement. A determination by the Government whether to compete this proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

 

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