EAGLE II: A $22 Billion Bull's Eye

EAGLE II
EAGLE II: A $22 Billion Bull’s-Eye

Will EAGLE II reach its $22 billion ceiling?

By Steve LeSueur

Although the first EAGLE contract will not come close to its ambitious ceiling of $45 billion, analysts see many reasons to believe that EAGLE II will be more widely used than its predecessor. When DHS officials began planning EAGLE I in late 2004, the Department of Homeland Security was still coming together as an agency, so not all components were ready to embrace an agency-wide, indefinite quantity/ indefinite delivery (IDIQ) contract.  

But use of EAGLE has grown steadily since its 2006 debut. Over the past three years, EAGLE has averaged about $2.6 billion in annual awards and today EAGLE accounts for approximately 25 percent of DHS spending on IT services and solutions, according to market analysts. EAGLE contractors hope to build on that momentum with EAGLE II, especially as older, pre-EAGLE contracts start to expire. “In the first years of an IDIQ vehicle like EAGLE, it’s going to take some time to ramp up,” said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer of the market research firm FedSources.  “But as legacy contracts within DHS wind down, agency components may be persuaded to move to EAGLE II.”

Kevin Plexico, senior vice president for research and analysis services at INPUT, said EAGLE II has an opportunity to expand into some of DHS’s larger component agencies. For example, Customs and Border Protection spent about $1.2 billion on IT products and services in fiscal year 2009, but only $103 million went through EAGLE. “There’s a lot of room for expansion within Customs and Border Protection,” he said.

EAGLE officials have been pleased with the contract’s growth. They will continue talking with component agencies and educating them about EAGLE II, encouraging them to use the contract when it meets their requirements. But they also expect contractors to play a strong role in helping expand EAGLE’s reach within DHS. “We expect the awardees under the EAGLE II contract to actively participate in the task order process by bidding on all projects or giving the rationale for why they chose not to submit an offer on a particular project,” said Soraya Correa, director of the DHS Office of Procurement Operations.