Coastal Tribal Climatic Impacts Analyses RFP

Purpose
The BIA Branch of Tribal Community Resilience and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals are seeking a contractor to develop regional summaries of climate change projections for approximately 30 federally recognized Tribes currently located along the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Puget Sound, Gulf of Mexico, and the shores of the Great Lakes. These regional summaries would accompany a report, The Estimated Unmet Need of Coastal Tribes in the Lower 48 States Facing Relocation Due to Climate Impacts. The purpose of the projections would be to support Tribal climate change adaptation planning efforts and provide supplemental information for the report describing anticipated climate change impacts for coastal Tribes and associated timeframes that the impacts might take place.

General Information

Posted Date: December 10, 2024

Closing Date: Proposal reviews will start immediately. RFP will remain open until filled.

Deliverables due date: March 20, 2025

Project background and summary
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Branch of Tribal Community Resilience (TCR) received a directive from Congress to produce a report, The Estimated Unmet Need of Coastal Tribes in the Lower 48 States Facing Relocation Due to Climate Impacts. The report was produced in collaboration with the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) and completed in December 2023. The report is undergoing a variety of review processes prior to its submission to Congress. Given that the directive was provided to BIA, the report only considers federally recognized Tribes. The draft report will be provided to hired contractors upon their signing of a confidentiality agreement.

Project scope
Key questions for Tribes include:

1.  How might sea level rise, high tide flooding, storm surges, and coastal erosion affect Tribal infrastructure and lands, where, and by when?

2.  What are the protect-in-place options and how much would they cost?

The contractor hired would make use of existing datasets to produce deliverables that could include regional summaries of:

• Sea level rise, high tide flooding, storm surge, and coastal erosion scenarios of Tribal lands and the timing of the expected impacts.

• Shoreline protection options and potential costs of developing protection options, such as berms and levees under different climate change scenarios.

In order to protect Tribal data sovereignty, impacts data would be summarized according to regions, and the summaries would then be provided to TCR and ITEP. Please note that it is not expected that proposals will seek to produce all of the deliverables specified within the time available, thus the review team looks forward to learning more about the feasibility and expected level of effort for the proposed deliverables.

Solicitation requirements

To submit a proposal, please describe or provide the following:

• Project team, capabilities, and past related projects, and resumes for senior personnel.

• Overview and relevant details of the proposed project, identifying the specific proposed assessments to be completed by the specified deadline using existing datasets for the Coastal Tribes. If certain datasets are not available for some of the geographic areas specified, please identify those limitations. 

• Experience working with Tribes, Tribal organizations, and tribally relevant data sovereignty issues, including how your team will address any Tribal data sovereignty concerns that arise. 

• Cost estimate and project timeline.

Evaluation

All responsive proposals will be opened, reviewed and rated based upon the following evaluation factors:

• Price

• Compliance with solicitation requirements

• Experience, quality and/or past performance

• Experience working with Tribes

Points of Contact

• Elisha Flores, Regional Tribal Community Resilience Coordinator, Branch of Tribal Community Resilience, Bureau of Indian Affairs, elisha.flores@bia.gov, 510-504-8998

• Chas Jones, Consultant, Tribes and Climate Change Program, Institute of Tribal Environmental Professionals, Chas@picea.group, 815-456-4173

Submission of Proposals

Proposals must be submitted by email to Elisha Flores and Chas Jones in a PDF format. Please see email addresses provided above.