IN ANOTHER Y-12/PANTEX PROTEST, B&W CHALLENGES NNSA RESPONSE TO GAO GUIDANCE

By ExchangeMonitor

A Babcock & Wilcox-led team bidding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12/Pantex contract is again protesting the agency’s actions, raising concerns in a challenge filed yesterday with the Government Accountability Office about the “fairness” of the procurement and selection process as well as the “form and scope” of the revised Request for Proposals issued to bidders June 6. B&W, which along with URS, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell make up Nuclear Production Partners, LLC, already successfully protested the NNSA’s initial award to Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security along with a Jacobs/Fluor-led team, leading the agency to seek more information about the cost savings proposals submitted by the three teams. Responses to the June 6 revised RFP are due Thursday.

While the GAO upheld contentions that the NNSA did not adequately analyze the cost savings proposed by bidders, it dismissed several other key issues raised by the bidders. Among the issues, the losing bidders argued that Source Selection Authority Michael Lempke unfairly used Bechtel’s experience consolidating the Bettis and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories to alter some of the evaluation scores for Bechtel, which proved to be the determining factor in the agency’s selection of Bechtel. “B&W and our NP2 team have expressed a number of ongoing concerns related to this procurement process,” B&W Technical Services Group President George Dudich said in a statement. “We are asking the Government Accountability Office to examine the fairness of the revised Request for Proposals and to ensure the RFP meets all government contracting requirements and fully addresses the GAO’s original decision and recommendation outlined on April 29, 2013, when our original protest was sustained.” NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha declined to comment on the protest.

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