The National Nuclear Security Administration will host a site tour and preproposal conference for its Kansas City National Security Campus contract Wednesday, but in a significant change from previous practices, the agency is only planning to allow potential bidders to attend the event. The
preproposal conference will take place from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at the General Services Administration Bannister Federal Complex Facility and the site tour will take place from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the Botts Road plant. While preproposal conferences for previous major NNSA procurements at Y-12/Pantex, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and the Nevada National Security Site were open to the public and press, NNSA spokeswoman Shelley Laver said the event is closed because the agency is in an active procurement.
A Request for Proposals was released in December, and proposals are due Feb. 10. “Any exchanges of information, to include pre-proposal meetings, must be consistent with Federal procurement integrity requirements laid out in FAR 3.104,” Laver said. “The pre-proposal conference is being held to exchange information with potential offerors to better their understanding of the Government’s requirements and allow them to determine whether or how best they can satisfy those requirements.” Laver said it is the “norm throughout the Federal Government” to limit the preproposal conference to “interested parties,” which federal acquisition requirements define as “potential offerors, end users, Government acquisition and supporting personnel, and others involved in the conduct or outcome of the acquisition.”
Industry officials have questioned the decision by NNSA, suggesting that an open conference could help competition. With small business participation being one of the evaluation criterion for the RFP, one industry official said he was baffled that there wasn’t an open conference that would allow small and disadvantaged companies a chance to network with potential prime bidders. “There’s no logic that I can think of to not allow people to go into an unclassified meeting in an unclassified conference room,” one industry official said. “Having it open can only get broader wisdom out there about what’s going on and theoretically increase the potential for good competition. I don’t see any compelling reason to restrict participation to the public meeting part of it.”
