HAZARDOUS MATERIAL EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SERVICE

***THIS IS A COMBINED SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE AND NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE***

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking information from sources that may be capable of providing hazardous material emergency telephone service. If no alternate sources are identified, the Government intends to issue a Sole Source Award to American Chemistry Council, Inc. division Chemtrec LLC (3130 Fairview Park Drive

Falls Church, Virginia 22042-4513) under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b). The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 561421. 

NIST has a need for a hazardous material emergency telephone service that is compliant with 49 CFR 172.604 and the 29 CFR 1910.1200 that meets or exceeds the following draft minimum specifications:

As part of the mission, NIST routinely ships hazardous chemicals (e.g. research samples, standard reference materials) all around the world.  To safely facilitate these shipments and comply with federal regulations, NIST must provide an emergency contact telephone number with each hazardous material.  This emergency contact must be manned at all times by hazardous material trained staff.

Background

When shipping hazardous material, NIST must comply with the code of federal regulations (CFR) including 49 CFR 172.604 and the 29 CFR 1910.1200. These regulations require that NIST provide an emergency telephone contact with each hazardous material that NIST ships. This telephone number must be included on each hazardous material package and each safety data sheet (SDS) which is specific to the hazardous material. The emergency telephone number must always be manned, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year, with hazardous material trained staff. The emergency telephone number is required so that emergency responders at the scene of an incident can call the number and obtain the hazard information related to the package.

General Requirements

1. Provide NIST the right to display the company’s name, a US toll free telephone number and international phone number as NIST’s emergency contact on Safety Data Sheets (SDSs), product packaging and labeling, hazard communication labels and other shipping documents
2. Provide call center staff with appropriately hazardous material trained professionals who have access to a database of NIST SDSs.
3. Provide call center staff that are capable of assisting customers in at least 240 different languages.
4. Answer emergency calls at all times, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
5. Provide telephone coverage for an unlimited amount of NIST hazardous material shipments to anywhere in the world.
6. Provide immediate product hazard information to a caller and information necessary to respond to an incident (e.g. personal protective equipment, evacuation zones, mitigation procedures)
7. Provide the caller with access to needed resources, (e.g. medical personnel, toxicologists, hazardous material resources).
8. Answer customer calls for up to 25 incidents per year.
9. Provide a detailed report to NIST about any callers and incidents within 2 days after receiving a call.
10. Provide NIST with the ability to do a routine test of the service.
11. Provide electronic storage space for NIST SDSs.  Maintain storage of over 5 million SDSs for emergency response.

NIST conducted market research from 2020 to 2025 by attending conferences, speaking with colleagues, performing internet searches, and speaking with vendors to determine what sources could meet NIST’s minimum requirements.  The results of that market research revealed that only American Chemistry Council, Inc. (Chemtrec, LLC) (UEI: H7GLBNZ5NFN5) appears to be capable of meeting NIST’s requirements.

For more than 18 years, NIST has contracted with CHEMTREC, a registered service of the American Chemistry Council, Inc., to provide emergency telephone service. Since CHEMTREC has provided NIST with emergency telephone service for the more than 18 years, the CHEMTREC emergency telephone number has been placed on all NIST SDSs generated over the past 18 years. These include SDSs for thousands of standard reference materials (SRM) and chemical samples generated by NIST staff.  If NIST were to switch to a different emergency telephone service provider, NIST would have to update the emergency telephone number on all existing SDSs at NIST.  This would require: editing each individual SDS file, processing each SDS through review, archiving the previous and current versions of the SDS, posting the new SDSs to the SRM web site, posting the new SDS to the systems that print out an SDS when a hazardous material is shipped, and coordinating all existing SDSs with the new telephone service provider. In addition, changing service providers would result in additional risk to NIST, and NIST's colleagues and customers. By changing service providers, NIST SDSs that have been distributed for the past 18 years would now have an inaccIn responding to this notice, please DO NOT PROVIDE PROPRIETARY INFORMATION. Please include only the following information, readable in either Microsoft Word 365, Microsoft Excel 365, or .pdf format, in the response.  Submit the response by email to the Primary Point of Contact and, if specified, to the Secondary Point of Contact listed at the bottom of this notice as soon as possible, and preferably before the closing date and time of this notice.

• Provide the complete name of your company, address, name of contact for follow-up questions, their email, their phone number and, if your company has an active registration in https://sam.gov, your company’s Unique Entity ID (UEI).

• Details about what your company is capable of providing that meets or exceeds NIST’s minimum requirements.

• Whether your company is an authorized reseller of the product or service being cited and evidence of such authorization.

• Identify any aspects of the description of the requirements in the BACKGROUND section above that could be viewed as unduly restrictive or create unnecessary barriers that adversely affect your firm’s ability to fully participate in a procurement for such services and explain why.  Please offer suggestions for how the requirements could be organized or structured to encourage the participation of small businesses.

• For the NAICS code
  • Indicate whether your company is (a) a small business or (b) other than small business.  See the Table of Small Business Size Standards and the associated .pdf download file for small business size standards and additional information.
  • If you believe the NAICS code listed in this notice is not the best NAICS code for the type of product addressed in this notice, identify an alternative NAICS code that you believe would be more appropriate for the planned procurement. 
• If your firm has existing Federal Supply Schedule contract(s) or other contracts for products or services against which the Department may be able to place orders, identify the contract number(s) and other relevant information.
• Describe your firm’s experience (as a prime, subcontractor, or consultant) providing the products or services described in Background section.

• Provide any other information that you believe would be valuable for the Government to know as part of its market research for this requirement.

• Please let us know if you would like to engage to get a better understanding of the requirement or need additional information about the Government’s requirement for the products or services described in the Background section. 

QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS NOTICE

Questions regarding this notice may be submitted via email to the Primary Point of Contact and the Secondary Point of Contact listed in this notice. Questions should be submitted so that they are received by 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on May 22, 2025.  Questions will be anonymized and answered via sources sought notice amendment following the question submission deadline.

IMPORTANT NOTES

The information received in response to this notice will be reviewed and considered so that the NIST may appropriately solicit for its requirements in the near future. 

This notice should not be construed as a commitment by the NIST to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. 

This notice is not a request for a quotation. Responses will not be considered as proposals or quotations.

No award will be made as a result of this notice. 

NIST is not responsible for any costs incurred by the respondents to this notice.

NIST reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and appropriate.

Thank you for taking the time to submit a response to this request!