The Census Bureau issued an amendment announcing that it was changing its procurement methodology for the large MAF/TIGER (Master Address File/Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (MAF/TIGER) Accuracy Improvement Project to the "Brooks Act" qualifications based selection (QBS) process, (title 40 United States Code, section 541) as required by Part 36 of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). The change was urged by MAPPS, a trade association of more than 160 geospatial firms (www.mapps.org).

MAF/TIGER is a mapping system of the United States and its territorial possessions to be used for the 2010 census. TIGER is the system and digital database developed at the Census Bureau to support the decennial census and other Census Bureau statistical programs.

The original procurement process, which would have included price proposals from competing firms, was challenged by MAPPS. The association said the scope of services in the procurement is "surveying" under the laws of all 50 states, as well as mapping related to research of real property -- two requirements that would trigger QBS under the Brooks Act and the FAR.

The revised solicitation and announcement can be viewed at: http://www.census.gov/geo/mod/maftiger.html