Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/10/2014
A Babcock & Wilcox-led team has three times protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s actions on the Y-12/Pantex procurement, and a senior B&W official this week said the company supports scrapping the entire procurement and starting over, perhaps competing the two management-and-operating contracts separately. “We think there’s merit in DOE considering just calling time out and going back to the drawing board and rebidding,” Marshall Cohen, B&W’s Vice President for Government Affairs and Communication, told the Knoxville News Sentinel newspaper Jan. 8. Cohen was in east Tennessee for several days discussing B&W and the Y-12/Pantex procurement with industry and community leaders, according to the News Sentinel. “We’ve talked with people, and we’ve said here’s what we think. We think the idea of a rebid has merit. That’s what we think,” Cohen said. “I’ve said that the last couple of days throughout the community. That’s what we think. We think that’s a good option that ought to be considered. Now what does all that mean, detail-wise? What does it mean economy-wise? I don’t know. How fast could DOE turn it around? I don’t know.”
Cohen’s comments came as the Government Accountability Office is considering B&W-led Nuclear Production Partners’ latest protest. Nuclear Production Partners filed its third protest of the procurement in November after the NNSA selected Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security as the winner of the contract for the second time. The GAO is expected to rule on the protest by Feb. 28. “The question is what does DOE kind of do, want to do,” he said. “Is its No. 1 priority cost savings? Which it was. There is some feeling, how viable—valid—is that as a top priority right now in the context of today’s world? … And that’s a judgment that people have to make … If you did a rebid, it would require DOE to reconsider how they want to do that. What cost savings make sense? Cost savings versus mission? The impact of cost savings on the economy and if you separate out the bids?”
In a statement, Bechtel spokesman Jason Bohne said the company declined to weigh in on the procurement. “The NNSA is being very thorough in its approach to ensure that it arrives at an outcome that is in the best interest of the weapons complex and its mission,” he said. “Out of respect for our customer and for the federal procurement process, we are not going to engage in speculation or public debate about this critical national security decision.”
More Support for Scrapping Procurement?
The comments also come on the heels of a guest column in the Knoxville News Sentinel by former Roane County (Tenn.) Executive Mike Farmer calling for DOE and NNSA to scrap the current procurement, reassess whether it should consolidate the Y-12 and Pantex contracts, and issue a new Request for Proposals. “Issuing a revised request for proposals allows the federal government to consider the current economic conditions,” Farmer wrote. “Sequestration, government shutdown and the potential for additional negative budget impacts will have an enormous effect. The U.S. government needs to consider how the environment has changed over the last two years.”
In his column, Farmer called the procurement “flawed” from the start, questioning how cost savings would be evaluated in the procurement process. “There were no real criteria established that suggested savings would actually be achieved,” Farmer wrote. “When the two leading competitors tied in the bid scoring, the government used arbitrary discriminators to ultimately make the decision. This was done with thousands of jobs at stake. … A flawed start can only lead to a damaged process and, ultimately, an unsound decision.”
