The U.S. Energy Department’s request for proposals (RFP) for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning, and Removal contract has seemingly sparked significant interest from the contractor community.
Vendors submitted 152 questions in response to the agency procurement for the potential 10-year, $3 billion award.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management in December released the final request for proposals for the contract to tear down and clean up excess contaminated facilities across the weapons complex – starting with Building 251 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Over 10 years, similar demolition projects would be done at sites held by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Office of Science, and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
The Energy Department posted the questions and its responses between Jan. 14 and Jan. 16. The deadline for submitting bids is Feb. 3, and a contract could be issued by the end of the year.
Here are a few of the points DOE made in response to questions.
- Two contracts are being awarded through this solicitation. One is a master multiple award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract written to be “intentionally broad” to provide the department with “maximum flexibility” to demolish old structures at various sites across the complex. The other is a task order for deactivating and tearing down Building 251. It appears the Building 251 contractor and vendors for future jobs will be drawn from winners of the IDIQ contract. There is no estimate on the number of future demolitions under the master contract.
- The winning bidder for the Building 251 task order should meet a 45% small business subcontracting target.
- Winners could conceivably earn up to 15% fee on the IDIQ contract.
- It will ultimately be up to the vendor for any task order to decide whether to sign a collective bargaining contract with a labor union. This was in response to a question on what happens if the winning vendor is a non-union entity.
Foreign owned, controlled, or influenced (FOCI) companies, which are sometimes excluded from weapons complex work, can still bid on the work with the proper government “mitigation strategy” to limit foreign management’s role, according to DOE’s responses to industry.
The Energy Department is also requiring nondisclosure agreements for foreign-affiliated firms to view certain information.
