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J&A Control No.: 23-006 Justification And Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition (41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(2)) Pursuant to the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) as implemen... J&A Control No.: 23-006 Justification And Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition (41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(2)) Pursuant to the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 6.3 and in accordance with the requirements of FAR 6.303-1, the justification for the use of the statutory authority under FAR Subpart 6.3 is justified by the following facts and rationale required under FAR 6.302-2 Unusual and Compelling Urgency as follows: 1. Agency and Contracting Activity: Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Office of Chief Component Procurement Officer, Acquisitions Operations Division, on behalf of the Recovery Technology Programs Division proposes to increase the contract ceiling for Identity Verification and Authentication Services Contract No. 70FB7019D00000011 awarded to Lexis Nexis Special Services, Inc. (Lexis Nexis) as a single award IDIQ Contract. 2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved: (a) Type of action: Ceiling increase for competitively awarded single-award IDIQ contract. (b) Name and Address of contractor: Lexis Nexis Special Services, Inc. 1150 18th Street NW, Suite 250 Washington, DC 20036 (c) Contract Type: Firm Fixed Price (d) Estimated total value (including options): Current Ceiling Amount Awarded Under This IDIQ: $15,250,000 Requested Ceiling Increase: $15,000,000 Requested Ceiling Amount: $30,250,000.00 (e) Type of funding: Disaster Relief Funds (f) Year of Funding: No Year (g) Solicitation No.: 70FB7019R00000001-1 (h) Background Information about the requirement: The purpose of this contract action is to increase the contract ceiling on a single award indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract to $30,250,000.00. The contract is currently in Option Year 3, and the current Option Year 3 period of performance ends June 30, 2023. The current ceiling for the IDIQ is $15,250,000.00, the contractor is Lexis Nexis Special Services, Inc., 1150 18th Street NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20036 Approval of an urgent increase to the ceiling is necessary to provide continuing Identity Verification and Authentication (IV&A) support for disaster survivors of Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian. IV&A operations support includes processing of all verification and authentication of identity, occupancy, ownership, insurance, vehicle and demographic information for individuals registering for FEMA disaster assistance or family reunification purposes where a disaster has occurred or have been declared. FEMA uses IV&A services as a part of the registration process for disaster survivors to apply online for disaster assistance, and for the National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System or NEFRLS registration and search processes. NEFRLS use is limited to the IV&A features. The request for identification verification and authentication services will identify the source system making the request. The need for a contract ceiling increase is due to the tremendous increase of registrations to date, especially from Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, that require the contractor’s services to verify that the applicant's name, address, phone, SSN and Date of Birth (DOB) is related to the person registering for disaster assistance. Hurricane Fiona (DR-4671-PR) alone has already generated over 1,166,508 million registrations and is projected to generate over 1.2 million total registrations, which accounts for more than the entire island of Puerto Rico. Hurricane Ian (DR-4673-FL) is anticipated to generate over 837,300 registrations by disaster survivors in the State of Florida. Every time a new applicant registers for disaster assistance, an instant verification transaction will be triggered for that applicant verifying their identity. The cost for the verification tool is $0.25 cents for every transaction. Given the enormity applicants of Fiona and Ian together, it is estimated that there will be over 2,059,300 applicants. The Instant Verify transactions alone for the month of September were over 1,572,280 transactions totaling almost $394,000 dollars for this tool alone. Additionally, every time an applicant logs in, FEMA is charged an authentication fee of $0.45 cents to authenticate that applicant’s identity. Applicants typically log in on average approximately 3 times to check on the status of their disaster application. The transactions for September for the Authentication Tool were over 1,621,436 totaling approximately $729,646.20 for Hurricane Fiona. Also, a one-time password is generated each time a disaster application is created, and that cost is $0.10 cents per transaction. There were over 1,479,932.00 transactions in September due to Hurricane Fiona with a total of around $147,993.00 dollars. Combined with the already unprecedented surge in costs under this IDIQ due to the COVID-19 Funeral Business verification to check validity of COVID claims (totaling over $2 million to date and still ongoing), the costs on this contract have far exceeded initial projections from when the IDIQ was originally awarded in FY19. The total amount awarded so far on this contract for Hurricanes Fiona and Ian have totaled $3,100,000 with more funding needed to cover the costs for October and November. 3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s need: FEMA has the mission of providing disaster assistance to eligible disaster survivors. In order for FEMA to determine if survivors are eligible for assistance, FEMA requires support services which include, but are not limited to, a One Time Password (OTP) authentication solution, verification and authentication of identity, occupancy, ownership, insurance, vehicle and demographic information for individuals registering for FEMA disaster assistance or family reunification purposes where a disaster has occurred or been declared. Furthermore, FEMA verifies that an applicant's name, address, phone, SSN and Date of Birth (DOB) exists and is related to the person registering. Due to the magnitude of the 2022 Hurricane Season, Puerto Rico alone is approaching 1.2 million valid disaster registrations for DR-4671-PR which include costs such as the Instant verification at $0.25 per transaction along with authentication of that applicant and each subsequent login at $0.45 cents per applicant. For reference, the baseline number of these services included each month under the non-hurricane season are around $50,000 dollars on average per invoice. Typically, this monthly cost covers all disasters during non-hurricane season. The invoice for Hurricane Fiona for just the last week of September 2022 for those same services was $1,270,709.40. FEMA still has to account for the number of applicants of Fiona in October along with the applicants from Hurricane Ian. Although the number of applicants for COVID-19 Funeral Assistance continues and both Hurricanes Fiona and Ian have skyrocketed, Lexi-Nexis has the ability to continue providing fraud protection services for the disaster applicants. However, at this level and this cost, FEMA’s continuing requirement has outpaced all initial projections and now requires an increase to the IDIQ ceiling amount to continue sustained operations. While we understand that doubling the ceiling of this contract requires an out of scope modification, it is absolutely necessary to continue the mission of providing assistance to disaster survivors which presents another reason for this J&A. This disaster support is being provided by the authority of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121, et seq) 4. Identification of Statutory Authority for acquiring the supplies or services on other than a full and open competitive basis: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(2) pursuant to FAR 6.302-2, Unusual and Compelling Urgency in response to Declarations for declared disasters. 5. Demonstration that the Nature of the Acquisition Require Use of the Authority Cited: FEMA does not have the necessary resources to include the adequate staffing to fulfill the mission of detecting fraudulent transactions during online registrations intake during and after a disaster has been declared. FEMA does have a competitively awarded IDIQ in place to support this Fraud detection services within the survivor application process. Due to the large volume of applications received during COVID-19, Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, the existing Fraud Detection contract ceiling amount can no longer support these surge requirements. The authority cited for Other than Full and Open Competition, 41 USC 3304(a)(2), is warranted since FEMA must fulfill its mandate to detect fraudulent applications, so that the right eligibility determinations can be made, and the fraudulent transactions can be parsed out, so FEMA can continue to provide the life-sustaining assistance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic and these natural disasters. If this request is not approved, FEMA’s ability to accomplish the mission of providing fraudulent detection support in support of our disaster survivor application process will impact our ability to correctly distribute the appropriate funding needed for these disaster survivors. This will significantly jeopardize the health, welfare, and safety of our disaster survivors if fraudulent actors are diverting funds needed for legitimate survivors. In addition, to re-compete the contract now, would result in unacceptable delays, substantial duplication in costs, and overall would be impractical. It would be most efficient to utilize the current Option period that we are in and the final Option period of the current contract. All aspects of the contracts current scope and pricing were projected accurately; this J&A is due to the unprecedented 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic funeral claims and fraud detection associated with those claims, and the 2022 Hurricane season, which resulted in unexpected and continuous high volumes of use of the CLIN’s on the current contract. Further, there is no time for a new vendor to receive a thorough transfer of knowledge and services, and to stand up a new contractor that provides these fraud detection services, clear their new employees, gain proficiency in program management requirements, and understand and adhere to PII Security requirements’ etc. An immediate increase in the contract’s ceiling value is necessary to avoid a break in service for this critical mission requirement. The current contractor has the capabilities required to continue performance through the end of this contract. Full and Open competition to transition the work prior to contract expiration would cause delays to the program and a high risk to the Government. 6. Description of Efforts Made to Ensure that Offers are Solicited from as Many Potential Sources as is Practicable: The current contract was competitively awarded, a solicitation was competed with a posting on SAM.gov. While the Government received six proposals, one IDIQ award was made to the successful offeror. The awardee was the only offeror that provided a proposal that was both technically acceptable and had fair and reasonable pricing. Upon current contract completion, the Government will initiate another competitive source selection process and expects to receive at least as many proposals as received for the previous competition. Additionally, an announcement is being planned for posting on SAM.gov during the next competition with an estimated posting date of June 2023 and projected award in 2024. 7. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Anticipated Cost to the Government will be Fair and Reasonable: The Contracting Officer determined at the time of contract award that the contractor’s price was fair and reasonable based on competition and comparison with historical unit costs previously awarded. The Contracting Officer also determined that the pricing is in line with the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) 8. Description of Market Research: Market research was conducted when FEMA initially awarded the contract by reviewing Government data bases such as GSA schedules, GSA Advantage, DHS Enterprise-wide Contract Vehicle Portal, acquisition history, interviewing knowledgeable vendors in the industry and internal SMEs. While there are capable vendors that can provide IV&A services, transition to a new contract would neither be cost effective nor is in the best interest of the Government. 9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: The requirement cannot be modified to enhance competition due to time constraints and the need to provide an expedited solution. This action exceeds the Synopsis Threshold of $25,000 (FAR Subpart 5.202(a) (2) Exemption). Unusual and Compelling Urgency applies, this precludes competition to the maximum extent practicable and the government would be seriously injured if the agency cannot fulfill the requirement. 10. A Listing of the Sources, if Any, That Expressed in Writing, an Interest in the Acquisition: No RFI or RFP has been released recently as the existing contract is still ongoing. The intent to use the Unusual and Compelling Urgency authority will be posted on SAM.gov and the J&A will be updated with the results of that special notice. 11. A Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for supplies or services required: The current contract is currently in its third Option Year with one Option remaining. After the current contract ends, FEMA will re-compete the IV&A Services requirement. Further, there is no plan to continue to sole source this requirement, the only reason it is necessary now to increase the ceiling is due to both the COVID 2020 response and the 2022 Hurricane Season which resulted in an unusual surge in Identity Verifications and Authentication checks due to supporting multiple hurricanes (Ian and Fiona) but predominantly Hurricane Fiona as the majority of the 2022 transactions are coming from Puerto Rico. Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification: I certify that this requirement meets the Government’s minimum need and that the supporting data, which forms a basis for this justification, is complete and accurate. Signed Patrick Finney, COR/Technical Representative APPROVAL: Contracting Officer’s Certification. I certify that the data supporting the recommended use of other than full and open competition is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Signed Oneko Dunbar, Contracting Officer Signed Rafael Lara, Jr., Office of Chief Counsel Signed Patricia V. Hoover, Alt. Competition Advocate Signed Lester L. Ingol, Chief Component Procurement Officer