environment | The Contracting Education Academy

February 28, 2020 By cs

DHS waives contracting rules for border wall

The Department of Homeland Security will waive traditional contracting rules to expedite construction of a wall along sections of the four states on the southern border.

According to a Federal Register notice published Feb. 20, DHS is looking to accelerate the tempo of construction projects in targeted sections of the planned border wall through a broad waiver or requirements of the use of open competition, pricing data, wage determination and other aspects of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

In a Feb. 18 appearance on Fox and Friends, Chad Wolf said a section of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, gives DHS the authority to waive the rules to expedite contracting for the wall. Wolf said the agency has used the same authority to waive environmental rules.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2020/02/18/dhs-waives-border-wall-wolf.aspx

May 26, 2016 By AMK

U.S. Energy Secretary’s visit highlights Georgia Tech’s energy collaborations

During U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Dr. Ernest Moniz visit to the Georgia Institute of Technology, he delivered the keynote address for the second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review.

Georgia Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson, left, and Executive Vice President for Research Steve Cross, right, host U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz at Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute on May 24, 2016. — Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, left, and Executive Vice President for Research Steve Cross, right, host U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute on May 24, 2016.

Moniz also toured the Southern Company’s Energy Innovation Center at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute in Atlanta’s Tech Square and the Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory on the Georgia Tech campus.

In his opening address, Moniz said Georgia Tech has the opportunity to play a key role as a center of innovation in developing regional energy solutions. He described a new DOE initiative to establish regional innovation partnerships.

Moniz said different regions have different needs, opportunities and resources, including natural, human and institutional resources. He added that Georgia Tech could serve as an institutional resource for the Southeast.

“We think that is good policy because those portfolios will take on different characters in different parts of the country,” he said.

The Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions (CNES) Laboratory is designed to foster industry collaboration and support translational and pre-commercial research in clean, low carbon energy technologies. Research spans all aspects of the energy cycle from production and generation to distribution and use, and is focused on addressing the most pressing energy and environmental challenges. Core research conducted within the lab includes solar technologies, combustion, gasification, catalysis and bio-catalysis, as well as carbon capture and sequestration.

During a tour of the Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz receives a demonstration of a new design for a compact heat exchanger for supercritical carbon dioxide power cycle funded by the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy University Program. Developer of the technology, Devesh Ranjan, associate professor of fluid mechanics in the School of Mechanical Engineering, explains the heat exchanger as Tim Lieuwen, Executive Director of the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech, looks on. — During a tour of the Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz receives a demonstration of a new design for a compact heat exchanger for supercritical carbon dioxide power cycle funded by the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy University Program. Developer of the technology, Devesh Ranjan, associate professor of fluid mechanics in the School of Mechanical Engineering, explains the heat exchanger as Tim Lieuwen, Executive Director of the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech, looks on.

“We’re honored to have Secretary Moniz back on the Georgia Tech campus, and it was especially meaningful to have him see one of our showcase facilities,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute. “We have a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with the Department of Energy as we work together to find clean, reliable, affordable and sustainable sources of energy.”

Lieuwen hosted the secretary for a tour of the CNES Lab, which has LEED Platinum status and was funded in part by Recovery Act funding through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST.)

The Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech was established to serve as a conduit for integrating, facilitating, and enabling Institute-wide programs in energy research and development.

Moniz also spent time with Georgia Tech partner, the Southern Company. Southern Company has worked with Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute on a number of research initiatives, including a promising 2005-2007 study on wind. DOE is a longtime supporter of and partner in Southern Company’s efforts to invent America’s energy future through robust, proprietary research and development (R&D).

Through the Energy Innovation Center, Southern Company is extending its R&D commitment by identifying better, more reliable and more efficient ways to increase value for customers through products and services. Many of the ideas being tested in the center come from the Southern Company system’s more than 26,000 employees, while others are surfaced through partnerships with leading universities, research organizations and like-minded companies such as Nest and Tesla.

Michael Britt, left, Vice President of Southern Company's Energy Innovation Center, demonstrates new technology being developed to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. — **Michael Britt, left, Vice President of Southern Company’s Energy Innovation Center, demonstrates new technology being developed to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.**

“Southern Company’s decades-long partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy has produced cutting-edge technologies that are reshaping electricity generation in America,” said Southern Company Energy Innovation Center Vice President Michael E. Britt. “Through the Energy Innovation Center at Tech Square and our partnership with Georgia Tech, Southern Company is expanding on its longstanding commitment to finding real energy solutions in coordination with like-minded leaders in R&D – from established corporations to fast-growing startups.”

In addition to the work taking place at the Energy Innovation Center, Southern Company operates DOE’s National Carbon Capture Center in Alabama and has received DOE support for the development of the world’s most advanced coal plant in Mississippi and two of the first new carbon-free nuclear units in a generation of Americans in Georgia.

Moniz also took the opportunity during his remarks to recognize leaders at Georgia Tech such as former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, namesake and distinguished professor in Georgia Tech’s Nunn School of International Affairs, and Provost Rafael Bras for their roles in advising federal energy and national security policy makers.

“We get lots of advice from Georgia Tech and we appreciate it,” Moniz said.

September 10, 2010 By AMK

GSA plans for ‘sustainability acquisitions’

In fiscal 2011, the General Services Administration intends to enter nearly all of its contracts with a requirement that companies supply or use environmentally preferred products and services, according to a new sustainability report released Sept. 9.

GSA wants 95 percent of its new procurements to have the sustainability requirement by then. Officials will look for products that contain recycled content, are energy and water efficient, bio-based, or won’t deplete the ozone, the report states.

In addition, by the end of October, officials plan to issue an updated procurement plan to ensure that designated products and services are included in all relevant acquisitions. They then aim to phase it in as the government further defines those products and services.

GSA says the plan will clearly define what constitutes a “sustainable acquisition” based on existing regulations and standards and will provide guidance on incorporating them into all purchases.

GSA has more targets under its new strategy to decrease its environmental footprint. By March, GSA wants “green” products to have icons on its GSA Advantage website, where agencies can buy from GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules contracts. And by next September, officials plan to update the unique codes for products and services in order to track whether agencies are buying with the environment in mind.

The procurement agency’s overarching plan is to use its buying power to change the market and what products and services companies offer the government. “GSA will eliminate its impact on the natural environment and use its governmentwide influence to reduce the environmental impact of the federal government,” officials wrote in the sustainability report.

In fiscal 2009, GSA made $62 billion in purchases, representing more than 11 percent of the government’s total procurement spending, and as the agency’s senior sustainability officer, Stephen Leeds, said in July, GSA plans to “make and move markets.”

In light of what Leeds said, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service will work with the top 200 federal contractors that participated in a survey on greenhouse gas emissions to determine how they report and manage their emissions.

By next September, GSA will have a strategy to offer companies incentives for cataloging and then disclosing their emissions data, the report states.

As for information technology and sustainability, GSA says it plans to consolidate printers and servers, and recycle unwanted IT products. Officials also will move ahead with consolidating data centers and reduce their power usage through intelligent management of the centers. By 2013, all agency-operated data centers will be at least 40 percent virtualized.

When it comes to data centers, the report notes that the major challenge is that more than half of them are run by the private sector and are not under GSA’s environmental control.

— by Matthew Weigelt – Sept. 10, 2010 – Federal Computer Week

The Department of Homeland Security will waive traditional contracting rules to expedite construction of a wall along sections of the four states on the southern border.

During U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Dr. Ernest Moniz visit to the Georgia Institute of Technology, he delivered the keynote address for the second installment of the Quadrennial Energy Review.

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