A joint venture that lost twice in a $45B Department of Energy competition at the Hanford Site in Washington state has presented a federal court with a legal ruling it hopes will disqualify the winner.
AtkinsRéalis-led Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance (HTDA) on July 18 told Judge Marian Blank Horn a decision in a similar case before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims shows the Hanford winner’s lapse in System for Awards Management registration “violated a mandatory eligibility requirement,” of a government solicitation.
In the recent case, Judge Kathryn Davis in the claims court said a bidder lacked standing to challenge an award because of its failure to stay continuously registered in the procurement tracking system.
HTDA said Davis’ July 16 ruling, in Independent Rough Terrain Center versus the United States and Taylor Defense Products, bolsters the Atkins-led team’s contention that BWX Technologies-led Hanford Tank Operations and Closure (H2C) should have been ineligible to receive the Hanford liquid waste contract.
HTDA has argued the BWXT-led winner should have been disqualified for failing to stay continuously registered with the procurement tracking system during the Hanford liquid waste competition. DOE had said it could cure the defect in the winner’s proposal with a corrective action and had both teams submit updated bid proposals.
In September 2023, the Army Materiel Command awarded a follow-on contract to Taylor. Independent Rough Terrain filed an agency bid protest in September 2023. The Army then said it would take corrective action by having the parties file revised proposals.
In January, the Army dismissed the protest and, days later, on Jan. 31, the upstart took its grievance to the claims court, where Davis eventually threw out Independent Rough Terrain Center’s claims for lack of standing. The company, Davis said, had failed to stay continuously registered with the federal procurement tracking system.
“In dismissing the protest, the court expressly and unequivocally rejected the notion that noncompliance with [federal regulations] could be subsequently cured through corrective action,” HTDA said in a July 17 notice of supplemental authority filing with Judge Horn.
H2C had not yet filed a publicly viewable reply as of Friday morning.
In February, DOE for a second time awarded H2C the Hanford Integrated Tank Disposition Contract potentially worth $45-billion over a decade. Horn initially blocked the award in June 2023. H2C consists of BWXT, Amentum and Fluor. Hanford Tank Disposition Alliance is a team of Atkins, Jacobs and Westinghouse.
Amentum, a member of the winning team, last November announced plans to merge with the government contracting arm of Jacobs, a member of the losing team.