GAO Evaluating Protests Over Latest Effort to Award Follow-on Contract
Mike Nartker
3/6/2015
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 this week. The Department did not respond to a request for comment late this week on the estimated value of the new extension.
Incumbent Contract Was to Have Expired September 2012
To date, Stoller has been the main beneficiary of DOE’s attempts to award the follow-on LM support services contract. Stoller’s contract was initially supposed to have expired at the end of September 2012, and it was unable to lead a bid for the follow-on contract because it no longer met the size standard used for the procurement. Instead, Stoller chose to join a team led by Wastren Advantage.
In April 2013, DOE chose Portage out of eight bids as the winner of the follow-on contract. That decision was met with protests to the Government Accountability Office by the WAI team and Navarro Research and Engineering. In response, DOE chose to take corrective action and re-evaluate all eight bids, leading to a decision in early 2014 to again select Portage as the winner of the follow-on contract. The WAI team and Navarro again filed protests with the GAO over DOE’s decision, and in the spring of 2014, the GAO sustained Navarro’s protest but denied WAI-Stoller’s.
The GAO’s decision led DOE to again re-evaluate the bids submitted, and in late January, the Department shifted course and chose Navarro as the winner of the follow-on contract. That decision was also met with protests to the GAO, this time from the WAI team and from Portage. The GAO is expected to render decisions on the two latest protests by early this summer.
