Stoller Newport News Nuclear has received a new six-month sole-source extension to its contract to provide support services to the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management as challenges to DOE’s latest effort to award a follow-on contract are resolved. Stoller is now set to remain in place until the end of September, bringing to three years the total length of various extensions DOE has provided as it has struggled to award the follow-on contract. “Unanticipated delays, due to protests … have created the need to further extend the current contract through September 30, 2015. Award of a non-competitive extension to the current contract is the only means to avoid jeopardizing the continuation of on-going and planned contract support to the Office of Legacy Management. The requested extension is the only feasible alternative for obtaining the required services before the contract expires,” DOE said in a notice issued yesterday.
The Government Accountability Office is in the midst of evaluating two protests—one from Portage and one from a team of Wastren Advantage-Stoller—filed against DOE’s decision in late January to award the follow-on Legacy Management support services contract to Navarro Research and Engineering. The GAO is expected to make decision on the two protests by early this summer. DOE’s choice of Navarro was the third time the Department has tried to award the follow-on contract, with Portage having been selected as the winner two times previously. Both of those decisions were met with protests to the GAO from the WAI-Stoller team and Navarro.