Incumbent Passing Two-Year Mark in Extensions
Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
10/3/2014
S.M. Stoller (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries) has once again received an extension to its current contract to provide support services for the Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, as the Department’s long-troubled search for a follow-on contract drags on with no end in sight. Stoller’s latest extension is set to run for up to three months, through Dec. 31, and has an estimated value of $18.1 million. DOE did not respond when asked this week about its estimated time frame for making a new award decision for the follow-on contract.
Stoller’s contract was initially supposed to expire in September 2012, but the contractor has received several extensions as DOE has struggled to award the follow-on LM support services contract. Stoller had been unable to lead a bid of its own for the follow-on contract because it did not meet the size standard employed for the small business set-aside procurement, but instead joined a team led by Wastren Advantage. DOE issued a Request for Proposals for the follow-on contract in November 2011, and bids were due by mid-February 2012.
DOE initially awarded the contract to Portage last April, leading to challenges from Navarro Research and Engineering and the WAI-Stoller team. In response, DOE chose last May to take corrective action by re-evaluating all eight bids, and then chose again early this year to award the new contract to Portage. Both Navarro and the WAI-Stoller team again protested DOE’s decision, and this spring the GAO sustained Navarro’s protest but denied WAI-Stoller’s. The GAO called on DOE to re-evaluate Navarro and Portage’s proposals and make a new award decision. DOE is currently in the midst of a third evaluation of the bids submitted, with the proposals currently set to expire at the end of this month.
