According to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s self-imposed timeline for releasing a final Request for Proposals for its combined Y-12/Pantex M&O contract, the 60-day clock on the agency’s work will run out Friday. But the agency isn’t saying whether it will release the final RFP this week as NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha declined to reveal the agency’s plans yesterday. “We are continuing our work on the final RFP and will release it as soon as it’s ready,” McConaha said. “We are committed to a thorough, thoughtful process.”
The agency previously said it would take 30 to 60 days to release the final RFP after the Sept. 19 close of comments on the draft document, and weapons complex observers have suggested that significant changes to the draft could delay the final RFP’s release. The draft RFP was widely criticized by industry for failing to compensate bidders for the challenges involved in merging the contracts at the beginning of its term and capping the potential fee later in the contract when cost savings could begin to accrue, and there are also questions about how the final document will deal with protective forces management, competition for the contract, where the home office for the contract should be located, and how federal oversight of the contract should be structured. NNSA Defense Programs chief Don Cook said earlier this month that the agency hadn’t heard anything from industry to dissuade it from combining the Y-12 and Pantex contracts, but he also declined to reveal a timeline for the release of the final RFP.
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