NOAA Office of Law Enforcement Vessel Monitoring System

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ADMENDMENT IS TO HEREBY:

PROVIDE ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS RECEIVED DURING THE Q&A REPSONSE TIME

REVISE DRAFT PWS TO REMOVE 8 MONTH TRANSITION TIME ESTIMATE

EXTEND RESPONSE DUE TO DATE UNTIL 10/16/2023 BY 2:00pm MT

The VMS is a satellite and cellular surveillance system which is primarily used to monitor the location and activities of commercial fishing vessels in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and international regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) areas. VMS supports law enforcement initiatives, for regulatory and statutory violation prevention, and for other fishery data-collection purposes. Data from VMS is used as evidence in the prosecution of many environmental laws and regulations including regional fishing quotas, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), to name a few.

The system employs satellite and cellular-based communications from Enhanced Mobile Transceiver Units (EMTU), which are onboard transceiver devices that certain vessels must carry. The VMS program monitors over 4,000 vessels 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This number of vessels will increase during the contract period; potentially up to 7,000 vessels.

The NMFS OLE employs software to receive, store, and provide to users (via embedded graphical map display, graphical text display, or via export to common external data and Geographic Information System software formats) the location and electronic reports of those commercial fishing vessels that are required by laws and/or regulations to install and operate an EMTU on board their vessel. The software is used by OLE staff, the United States Coast Guard, State enforcement agencies, and other fisheries-related personnel, totaling over 2,000 users.

The objective of this requirement is to award a contract to a company who will provide system integration services to coordinate all products and services to support the OLE VMS program, including application services for timely and accurately displayed vessel positions and messages; VMS satellite communications services; VMS software support services; Maximum Transmission Unit hardware and software needs of the VMS Program, integration with other external, NOAA-maintained databases, and Type Approval Testing services. The VMS program will support the day-to-day vessel monitoring activities of law enforcement personnel, NOAA NMFS Office of the Chief Information Officer, US Coast Guard; Joint Enforcement Agreement State partners (JEA), NMFS General Counsel, NMFS Science Centers, and NMFS Regional Offices, to support both enforcement/compliance needs as well as data collection/management/scientific needs.