Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
5/1/2015
In a move that prompted mixed reaction from industry officials, the Department of Energy late last week inadvertently released the identities of companies that have submitted questions on the Request for Proposals for the new contract to manage Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed facilities at the Department’s Idaho site and in Colorado. Among the companies that had submitted questions, according to a version of the Q&As issued April 23, were Navarro Research and Engineering, DMS, Dade Moeller, StrataG, SpectraTech, Advanced Technologies and Laboratories (ATL), TSSD Services, and Frank Douglas Consulting.
DOE acknowledged its error the next day, reposting the Q&As on the website established for the procurement with the questioners’ identities removed. “DOE acknowledges that posting the names of the industry companies who submitted questions about the Final RFP and/or Pre-proposal Conference/Site Tour is not in accordance with the DOE practice regarding the posting of Questions and Answers, and consequently, the names of the industry companies who asked questions were removed. We regret any inconvenience this inadvertent posting may have caused,” the Department said.
‘I Am In Shock About This’
Some industry officials, though, were concerned that the information was made public at all. “I am in shock about this,” one industry official said late last week. “The questions disclosed confidential information. It not only identifies the bidders, but also, by knowing who asked what, you learn something about the issues each team has. I have never seen this happen in any government agency bidding process, I thought this was not permitted.” Others industry officials appeared to be less worried. “We show up at site visits and sign in [at] pre-bid conferences and our names and companies are posted on procurement websites. So all competitors have some idea of who they are up against. That is common practice,” one said.
Contract Set Aside for Small Businesses
The new contract, which is being set aside for small businesses meeting a $38.5 million size standard, would cover work at the Fort St. Vrain facility in Colorado; the Three Mile Island-2 Independent Spent Fuel Storage facility at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) in Idaho; and the Idaho Spent Fuel Facility (ISFF) license. In their questions, Navarro, DMS, Dade Moeller, ATL and TSSD, each asked whether DOE would provide additional time to submit bids or proposed deadline extensions ranging from two weeks to, in TSSD’s case, an additional month. DOE late last week issued an amendment to the RFP for the contract that extended the bid deadline by eight days, to May 8.
