senior procurement official, Headquarters, in excess of $5 million, counsel in excess of $1 million, or such lower amount as counsel may determine, and the designee of the senior procurement official, Headquarters, in excess of $500 but less than $5 million.

(3) Field offices are required to promptly submit all unsolicited proposals to Headquarters for processing. Therefore, only designated Headquarters organizations are authorized to concur in and/or approve justifications for acceptance of unsolicited proposals. $9-4.910 Methods of procurement.

(a) When an unsolicited proposal has received a favorable technical evaluation, has met all of the requirements, and the required justification for acceptance of unsolicited proposals has been approved, the subject matter of the proposal may be procured from the proposer.

(b) The proposal constitutes the basis for negotiation and any further technical or business information shall be considered to supplement, amend, or revise the original proposal. Formal RFPs and RFQs shall not be used to obtain additional information needed for the negotiation of contracts.

(c) When the substance of an unsolicited proposal is available to ERDA without restriction from another source or its substance closely resembles that of a pending competitive solicitation or otherwise does not fulfill the requirements of $9-4.901, the proposal shall be rejected.

$9-4.912 Interagency coordination.

(a) If the effort proposed by an unsolicited proposal is not within the mission of ERDA, the proposal, with the prior written approval of the proposer, may be referred to another agency whose mission indicates potential interest in the unsolicited proposal. proposer will be notified of the referral.

The

(b) An unsolicited proposal may propose activities that are also of interest to other agencies. In such cases, with the prior written approval of the proposer, interagency proposal evaluation will be initiated. If found acceptable, an agency may either write a separate contract or jointly fund the program with another agency having a collateral interest.

$9-4.913 Limited use of data.

The submitter may mark the unsolicited proposal with a legend

90-136 77-8

restricting the disclosure and use of data in the proposal. Subpart 9-3.150 sets forth the policies and procedure pertaining to the marking and handling of proprietary data and privileged business information. ERDA regulations with regard to the avoidance of organizational conflicts of interest (see Subpart 9-1.54) shall apply with regard to the making of awards on the basis of unsolicited proposals, the administration of contracts, or other arrangements resulting from such awards, and any evaluation of proposals which ERDA decides to have made either outside the Government or by the contractor organizations operating and managing ERDA facilities, including the competitive relationship, if any, between the proposer and the prospective outside evaluator. In addition, if the proposal under consideration expressly indicates that only Government evaluation is authorized and evaluation outside the Government is nevertheless desired, the proposer should be advised that ERDA may be unable to give full consideration to the proposal unless the proposer consents in writing to having the proposal evaluated outside the Government.

$9-4.950 Notice of program interest.

(a)

The notice of program interest can be used to stimulate the flow of unsolicited proposals. Each program office may publish periodically a listing of broad, general, technical problems and areas needing investigation.

(b) The "notice" should contain, but is not limited to, the following:

(1) a number assigned by program office for control and reference purposes;

(2) a brief description of the broad general technical program or areas needing investigation (generally 50 words or less); (3) restrictions, if any, as to who may submit proposals;

(4) a contact (name and telephone number) within the program office or division, where additional information may be obtained;

(5) an expiration date, as needed;

(6) a statement that ERDA reserves the right to support or

not to support any or all proposals in whole or in part;

(7) as appropriate, a statement that ERDA assumes no responsibility for any costs associated with specific proposal preparation. Except, where applicable, ERDA will pay its allocable share of bid and proposal expenses as provided for in the FPRS and ERDA-PRs;

(8) number of proposal copies required and address of the receiving office to which proposals should be mailed.

(9) a reference that detailed information concerning contracting policy and procedures is contained in the ERDA-PR, copies of which are available from the Division of Procurement, Rm. C-167, US ERDA, Washington, D.C. 20545.

(c) The content of the notice should be consolidated for publication at the responsible official level and should be in the format that best reflects the needs of a specific office, e.g., letter, booklet, bulletin, or related documents.

(d) The notice should be distributed widely. It may be distributed to industry, associations, including small business associations, schools, colleges and universities, appropriate professional and scientific journals, other ERDA offices, as well as individuals and organizations who request copies on a one-time basis. Copies of the notice are to be sent to the senior procurement official, Headquarters.

(e) The submission of other innovative methods, approaches or ideas is not to be restricted to only those problems or technical areas published in the notice of program interest.

$9-4.951 Cost participation.

Subpart 9-4.59, which outlines ERDA's cost participation policy, shall be followed in determining the extent to which ERDA will participate in the cost for the proposed effort.

$9-4.952 Patents.

Policies and procedures on patents, data, and copyrights are contained in ERDA-PR 9-9.

$9-4.953 Responsible prospective contractors.

Notwithstanding the decision to accept an unsolicited proposal, organizations and individuals are subject to the policies concerning the responsibility of prospective contractors set forth in Subpart

9-1.12.

$9-4.954 Unsolicited proposals for commercial demonstrations.

(a) When a received document otherwise qualifies as an unsolicited proposal, but its substance is generally known and may be obtained without restriction by formal competitive solicitation or

program opportunity notice, or its substance closely resembles that of a pending formal competitive solicitation or program opportunity notice, ERDA's policy of obtaining competition applies.

(b) Unsolicited proposals for nonnuclear energy demonstration activities not covered by existing formal competitive solicitations or program opportunity notices should be prepared using the information requirements of $9-4.5702-5 as a guideline; may request Federal assistance or participation and shall be subject to the cost sharing provisions of §9-4.59.

(c) The responsible program official shall assign a project officer and such other personnel as necessary to evaluate each unsolicited proposal, and to recommend whether the proposal should be supported. Unsolicited proposals for demonstration projects will be evaluated in accordance with:

(1) the Federal support criteria set forth in §9-4.5702-3(a) through (i);

(2) the evaluation criteria set forth in $9-4.5704(c); and (3) the evaluation criteria set forth in §9-4.901.

Subpart 9-4.10 Architect-Engineer Services

$9-4.1000 Scope of subpart.

This subpart contains ERDA policies and procedures for the procurement of professional architect-engineer services by contract. The requirements of this subpart do not apply to the procurement of professional architect-engineer services by ERDA contractors.

Pursuant to the FPR of this title it is the policy of the ERDA to publicly announce all requirements for architect-engineer services, and to negotiate contracts for architect-engineer services on the basis of demonstrated competence and qualification for the type of professional services required at fair and reasonable prices.

The term "discussions" includes telephone conversations, exchange of correspondence, or interviews. The term "interview", as used in FPR 1-1.1003-7(b)(9), Note 63, means "discussions" as defined above.

$9-4.1003 Public announcements.

To ensure the broadest publicity concerning ERDA's interest in obtaining architect-engineer services, a notice of intention to contract for architect-engineer services shall be prepared and published for each procurement of architect-engineer services, in accordance with the requirements of FPR 1-1.1003-3(c) and (d) and 1-1.1003-7(b)(9).

$9-4.1004 Selection.

$9-4.1004-1 Establishment of architect-engineer evaluation boards. Architect-engineer evaluation boards will be used for the selection of professional architect-engineer services when the estimated cost of the contract is $500,000 or more. Except as provided by this subpart, the use of architect-engineer evaluation boards shall be governed by the general policies and procedures contained in FPR 1-4.1004-1 and 1-4.1004-2 and the policies and procedures contained in internal ERDA management directives concerning the selection of such contractors by board process. These policies and procedures are also applicable to the selection of architect-engineers for procurements of less than $500,000. However, less formal procedures and practices may be followed, depending upon the circumstances in each particular selection, at the discretion of the selecting official. ERDA-PR Part 9-51 sets forth administrative requirements for the review and approval of certain contract actions. When Headquarters approval of the selection is required, the solicitation, selection criteria weights, back-up supporting the selection and other information and documents as may be requested, are to be submitted.

Contracting officers or architect-engineer evaluation boards shall apply the evaluation criteria contained in this subsection, as appropriate, and any special criteria developed for individual selections. When special and additional criteria are to be used, they shall be set forth in the public announcement required by Section 94.1003, and a written justification for their use shall be placed in the ERDA file maintained for the project.

(a) General qualifications, including:

members;

(1)

Reputation and standing of the firm and its principal

(2) Experience and technical competence of the firm in comparable work;