# Presentation: 583922

## OPPTS 

**Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances**

- October 2007

## Where is OPPTS in EPA

- Regions - Oriented by Geography
- HQ Program Offices - Oriented by Media
- Air, Water, Solid Waste, Chemicals, Pesticides, etc.
- Labs and Field Offices - Organized under related Program Office.

**OPPTS**

## OPPTS is functionally organized into three Offices covering:

**Pesticides**
**Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances**
**Science Policy**

## Pesticides

- _Regulates the use of all pesticides in the US._
- Registration or licensing of Pesticides
- Set maximum levels for pesticide residue in food
- Review the safety of older pesticides to ensure safety standards are met.
- Reassess tolerances
- Special Consideration on potential exposures to children; more vulnerable to risk. Pesticide labeling and other regulatory actions to protect health and the environment
- Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program
- Voluntary private and public partnerships dedicated to reducing pesticide use and risk.
- IPM in Schools
- Consumer Labeling Initiative

**Notes:**
Federal Law requires that before selling or distributing a pesticide in the US, a company must obtain a registration, or license, from EPA. 
Before registering a product, EPA must first ensure that the pesticide, when used according to label directions, can be used with a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health and without posing unreasonable risks to the environment.
More than 100 different scientific studies and tests are required from the applicants.
Where pesticides may be used on food or feed crops, EPA also sets tolerances (maximum pesticde residue levels).

## Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances

- _Promotes the use of safer chemicals, processes, _
- _and technologies._
- New Chemical Pre Manufacturing Notice (PMN) reviews.
- National programs for Lead, Asbestos and PCBs; promotes life-cycle management of environmental problems.
- Supports activities to advance pollution prevention
- Design for the Environment, Green Chemistry program.
- Chemical Right-to-Know Program
- Voluntary program with industry to make basic hazard data available to the public on over 2,000 chemicals used in high volume in US.
- Identify and evaluate chemicals of particular concern to children’s health.

## Science Policy

- Provides coordination & leadership of science policy within OPPTS.  Major activities include:
- Endocrine disruptors
- Biotechnology
- FIFRA Science Advisory Panel (SAP)
- Peer Review

## Contract Volume

- Together these three OPPTS Offices have over 40 active large contracts valued at over $240 Million.
**Contracts range from**
- Small, low dollar value, single purpose;
- to large, multi-year, multi discipline
**~$35M funded on contracts annually**

## Types of Contract Activity

**Technical Evaluation (TE)** – Technical reviews; exposure, fate, chemistry and toxicology support; tolerance assessments, literature reviews, evaluation of scientific studies.
**Policy and Regulatory Support (Pol/Reg)** – Regulatory impact analysis, economic analysis, biological impact assessments and quality assurance support.
**Communication and Outreach (C&O)** -  Conference support, training, workshops, development of outreach materials, preparations of charts, graphs, photos, maps, brochures, posters.
**Administrative (Admin**) – Requirements for records and files management, training, supplies, office furniture/non-ADP equipment and its  maintenance.
**Information Technology (IT)**-  Computer programming and applications support.

## Upcoming Projected Contracts

- Currently 19 procurements on forecast
- 6 have Solicitations projected for Oct-Dec
- TSCA Helpline (FY 05-293)   $1-$3M.
- National Lead Information Center (NLIC) Hotline         (FY 07-004).   $3-$5M.
- Doane Agrotrak Database (FY 07-022)  $3-$5M.
- Tech Support for Pesticide Regulatory Activities (FY 07-25) $3-$5M.
- Toxicological Study Reviews (FY 07-26) $5-$10M.
- FOIA Software Maintenance (FY 08-55) $250K-$500K.

## What happens to Requirements?

**Requirements passed to EPA Procurement Office.**
- 4 Main Divisions.  2 at HQ, 1 at RTP NC, 1 at Cincinnati OH.
- 9 smaller Regional Offices.
**Procurement Office Posts information to the public**
- EPA Website _[http://](http://www.epa.gov/oam)__[www.epa.gov/oam](http://www.epa.gov/oam)_
- EPA Forecast Database
- Contains info on current and planned acquisitions (2008) over 100K.
- _[http://yosemite1.epa.gov/oarm/oam/forecastdatabase.nsf](http://yosemite1.epa.gov/oarm/oam/forecastdatabase.nsf)_
- Current Announcements (EPA only)
- Sources Sought, Synopsis, and Solicitations.
- All amounts  (not only >100K)
- Fed Biz OPS
- Contains info on current acquisitions over 25K for ENTIRE federal government.
- May have Sources Sought, Synopsis, and Solicitations.

## Who to contact at EPA

**Primary Point of Contact**
- person named in website posting.
**Subsequent POC’s**
- Service Center Mgr for Procurement
- Varies by Program Office
- Most OPPTS needs are serviced by Robert Minjack,        202-564-4794
- Program Office Contracts Coordinator (JRO)
- OPPTS = Steve Schwartz,  202-564-8261

## You CAN do business with EPA

- It’s not Rocket Science!