Following a December court decision, the Department of Energy is officially canceling the solicitation that resulted in incumbent Swift & Staley winning — and then eventually losing — a new set-aside contract two years earlier for landlord services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky.
“DOE has determined that canceling this solicitation is in the best interest of the government due to the length of time that has passed since the solicitation was released and proposals were received (approximately three years), a substantially changed economic environment, including but not limited to the effects of COVID-19, and key changes to the performance work statement,” the agency said in a Monday press release.
In the short-term at least, Swift & Staley will still provide services under its extended contract, set to expire July 31, 2024, or until a new provider is chosen. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center expects to kick off that process in the third quarter of fiscal 2023, which translates to the three-month period starting April 1.
The DOE nuclear cleanup office issued a procurement notice in February saying for continuity’s sake it would keep Swift & Staley in place through July 2024.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in December 2022 Swift & Staley violated the agency’s size standards at the time the Paducah set-aside contract was awarded in December 2020. The appeals court agreed with rulings by a lower court and the Small Business Administration that Swift & Staley did not satisfy the size limits for the new $160-million, five-year contract awarded in December 2020.
Kentucky-based Swift & Staley has held the Paducah Infrastructure Services Contract,listed with a current value of $336 million, since October 2015. The catchall services contract includes a wide variety of responsibilities for coordinating everything from pest control to road maintenance to site security at the former gaseous diffusion plant complex.
The protracted legal proceedings commenced after a rival bidder, Virginia-based Akima, claimed Swift & Staley exceeded the small-business size limit once its minority stake in a similar landlord contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio was taken into account.
Akima declined to comment. Swift & Staley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
