The Government Accountability Office found ‘no basis’ to object to the Department of Energy’s approach to evaluating contenders for its National Training Center contract, according to its public decision on the incumbent’s bid protest.
On Oct. 9, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied two protests by the Albuquerque, N.M.-based National Training Center’s incumbent, Kupono Government Services, against the award of a follow-on, $338-million contract to Eagle Harbor.
According to the decision, partially redacted for its public release this week, GAO denied Kupono’s argument that DOE “unreasonably” evaluated the bidders’ proposals and did not analyze the best option and trade off properly.
“We have considered all the allegations and find no basis to object to the agency’s conduct of the acquisition for any of the reasons advanced by the protester,” the decision said.
Meanwhile, incumbent Kupono can remain on the job at the training center until August 2025, under a one-year extension DOE awarded in August 2024. The agency bought itself some time while the latest rounds of protests play out in the hotly contested competition.
That includes a separate Kupono protest with the Small Business Administration. In July, the administration’s Office of Hearings and Appeals ruled that the agency’s Area IV office needed to take another look at whether Eagle Harbor qualified as an eligible small business for the training center award.
Kupono told the Small Business Administration that Eagle Harbor violated the agency’s ostensible subcontractor rule and that employees of Eagle Harbor’s parent company, Alaska Native Corporation, should have been included in Eagle Harbor’s headcount.
Until recently, DOE thought it would award a new management and operations contract for the training center in August. Instead, it reupped Kupono as protests continued. The scuttled re-award that eventually went to Eagle Harbor resulted from a competition that began in April. That competition was the result of three protests of DOE’s 2022 award to Eagle Harbor, which has now been awarded the work twice.
The first solicitation for a follow-on National Training Center contract hit the street more than four years ago, in September 2020.
DOE’s National Training Center, on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. near the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Sandia National Laboratories main campus, provides varieties of training for agency and contractor personnel, including in nuclear safety, government ethics and firearms use, according to the center’s website.
