The Department of Energy has decided to conduct a third evaluation of all of the bids submitted for the new Office of Legacy Management support services contract in response to a recent Government Accountability Office decision to sustain a protest filed over DOE’s award of the new contract to Portage. DOE informed bidders on the new contract yesterday of its plans for responding to the GAO’s decision, saying that no proposals have been eliminated. While eight bids were submitted for the new contract, in its decision last month, the GAO recommended that DOE only re-evaluate two bids and make a new award decision—Portage’s proposal and one submitted by Navarro Research and Engineering, which conducted the successful protest.
The new LM support services contract has been set-aside for small businesses and has been valued at approximately $250 million. DOE has told the bidders on the new contract that its latest re-evaluation will address areas outlined in the GAO’s decision to sustain Navarro’s protest, which found that the Department’s decision to award to Portage was based on “unreasonable conclusions, unequal evaluations, or inaccurate judgments regarding the differences between the two proposals.” DOE also has told bidders that it will decide how to proceed after completing its re-evaluation. 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 last month the GAO sustained Navarro’s protest but denied WAI-Stoller’s.
