DOE Close to Making New Award Decision for LM Support Services Contract

The Department of Energy’s lengthy procurement for a new support services contract for the Office of Legacy Management may be soon coming to an end, with a third award decision set to come in the next few weeks, though it remains to be seen if unsuccessful bidders will continue to challenge the Department‘s decision. DOE expects to complete in “November, early December 2014” the corrective action it has undertaken in response to a successful Government Accountability Office protest over a previous award decision, according to a document the Department released late last week. DOE also said in the document that it intends to provide another three-month extension to the contract held by incumbent S.M. Stoller (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries), which would run through the end of March 2015.

DOE is currently in the midst of a third evaluation of the eight bids submitted for the new LM support services contract, which has been set aside for small businesses, and has been valued at approximately $250 million over five years. DOE initially awarded the contract to Portage last April, leading to challenges from Navarro and the team of Wastren Advantage-S.M. Stoller. In response, DOE chose last May to take corrective action by re-evaluating all eight bids, and then chose again early this year to award the new contract to Portage. Both Navarro and the WAI-Stoller team again protested DOE’s decision, and this spring the GAO sustained Navarro’s protest but denied WAI-Stoller’s.