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6
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The findings and recommendations of the committee are as follows:
1. Finding: The NOAA Fleet represents a significant and unique
part of the total Federal Oceanographic Fleet. As such, decisions
regarding its future should be made in the context of total national
needs.
RECOMMENDATION: Policy decisions concerning the future of the
NOAA Fleet should ensure that the capability to support national
interest at sea is strengthened, not diminished.
2. Finding: Ocean research and data acquisition will most probably
increase as a consequence of the 1983 declaration of an Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ) extending 200 miles offshore, the increased use of
marine resources, the national commitment to global ocean investiga-
tion, and the level of future NOAA activities in bathymetry, fisheries,
and oceanography. The NOAA Fleet will play an important role in
accomplishing this task.
RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should take action to ensure that it will
be able to provide the nation with the required capability to
perform marine resource assessment and oceanographic research in
the future.
3. Finding: Industry and other governmental agencies have used
chartering to obtain sophisticated and cost-effective oceanographic
services. In selected program areas, NOAA potentially could use
chartering to comparable advantage to help to meet its ship needs and
to bring new and more sophisticated vessels into national service.
Other program areas are not conducive to chartering.
RECOMMENDATION: In selected program areas, NOAA should
establish and implement policy that encourages the acquisition of
short- and long-term ship services through a variety of chartering
mechanisms.
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RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should commission the conduct of a study
to define the characteristics of an idealized fleet to meet present
and projected ship services needs. The results of this study
should serve as the basis for the modernization of the NOAA Fleet
and the implementation of a program for chartering ship services.
RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should prepare a carefully designed
request for proposal (RFP) for chartering ships to service one or
more mission areas.
It is the committee's belief that bathymetric surveying of the EEZ
should be offered to interested contractors as promptly as a carefully
drawn RFP can be prepared and multLyear chartering authorization can be
obtained. Only through an RFP will definitive information be developed
on chartering costs and vessel availability. Once the government has
definitive information on contractor costs and services and its own
costs and requirements, it can make an informed decision about
contracting for vessel services.
4. Finding: The committee has attempted to obtain data to compare
the cost of services of contractors to NOAA-performed oceanographic
services. The data from respondents were inconclusive due primarily to
lack of specificity in standards and tolerances provided for each
mission area. The committee believes that only through the issuance of
a carefully prepared RFP, which would include incentives for high
performance by contractors and clear intent to make a contract award,
will competitive and reliable cost data be obtained.
RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should issue a full RFP for EEZ
bathymetric surveying and convey a serious intent to award a
long-term contract in order to obtain accurate cost data. This
should be undertaken by NOAA as an experimental programs with a
clear recognition that funds must be set aside to implement this
recommendation.
5. Finding: NOAA is justifiably apprehensive about ensuring
contractor responsiveness and the quality of products produced.
RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should accept the direct responsibility
for defining its expectations in standards and tolerances that
become part of any RFP and contract documents that may result from
a successful solicitation. Other federal agency successes and
failures should be fully understood.
6. Finding: For many chartering alternatives, long-term charters
are more cost-effective and attractive than short-term charters.
NOAA's past chartering experience has not included long-term
contracting. It is not clear to the committee that NOAA is able to
enter into long-term multiyear contracts for ship charters and
scientific services. Other agencies appear to have such authorization.
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RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should establish agency policy and
procedures to enter into long-term multiyear contracts for ship
charters and related scientific services.
7. Finding: The legal implications pertaining to nautical charts
were not examined in detail by this committee. However, the committee
understands that NOAA has the responsibility to support its nautical
charts in litigation.
RECOMMENDATION: Hydrographic survey ship operations for the
purpose of preparing nautical charts should not be chartered out
until the implications are fully understood.
8. Finding: Problems appear to occur most frequently where techni
Cal procurement documents are prepared in a central procurement office
by individuals not intimately familiar with the tasks to be
accomplished or services to be rendered at sea.
RECOMMENDATION: NOAA should establish a technical capability
within its procurement organization that will be fully cognizant of
and sympathetic with the needs of scientific personnel.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
noaa fleet
