Dae Chung, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services, defended his organization’s small business record during the online Waste Management Symposia this week.
His comments come after a U.S. senator, among others, complained that new procedures seem to be hurting small contractors in Washington state that rely upon DOE cleanup work.
The DOE’s nuclear cleanup office has received “a very high grade from the Small Business Administration” for its procurement efforts over the past five years, Chung said.
But at the same time, “we have just completed a deep dive” on small business and subcontracting at the Hanford Site in Washington, Chung said. The DOE will look at lessons learned from the newly-awarded Central Plateau Cleanup contract there, he added.
Last week, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) used the confirmation hearing for David Turk, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee for deputy secretary of energy, to push DOE for a “smoother implementation,” of a new procurement method for subcontractors. The changes endanger some small firms in the Tri-Cities area near Hanford, she said.
The Energy Communities Alliance and other critics say DOE has encouraged new primes at the cleanup site to terminate existing subcontracts and hire workers away from the subs.
Small business retains 15% to 20% of the total value of recent multibillion-dollar contracts awarded to Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. and Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, Chung said.
Away from Hanford, the Small Business Administration ruled in January that Swift & Staley was too large to qualify for a new $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract awarded by DOE in December. Swift & Staley is appealing the finding.
Meanwhile, the new Central Plateau contract, which took effect in January, is the first major EM business using the new end state contracting model, designed to increase DOE’s flexibility while providing the winning team significantly higher fees for achieving more cleanup milestones.
Chung said the end state model offers a more standardized approach to bid preparation, which provides potential bidders with greater predictability and also saves companies time and money in preparing their proposals. As a result, Chung said the number of proposals per contract seems to be increasing in the early going from three to five.
