Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has not received a status report yet from the U.S. Department of Energy on procurement of a new multibillion-dollar contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state.
“We haven’t received a response yet,” a Feinstein spokesman said via an email Tuesday.
On Sept. 27, Feinstein, along with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), asked then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry to delay issuing the follow-on Hanford support services award until providing the lawmakers with more information about a federal fraud case brought against the current contractor and its former leadership.
Leidos-led Mission Support Alliance (MSA) recently received a six-month extension to its existing 10-year, $4.3 billion contract that could keep it on the job through May 2020. In May, DOE said a new contract, worth up to $6 billion, was expected by August. Industry sources now say it could come within a couple months.
The senators, all members of the upper chamber’s Appropriations Committee, said the Energy Department informed Congress this summer it was about to issue a new contract – apparently to a group including at least some MSA members. While the agency then withdrew the notification, the senators still want details on both the procurement process and the February suit filed against MSA by the Justice Department under the False Claim Act and Anti-Kickback Act.
In its civil case, the Justice Department claims “fraud, corruption and self-dealing” happened while Lockheed Martin led MSA and also owned a subsidiary that provided information technology as a subcontractor to the company between 2010 and 2015. At the time Mission Support Alliance was owned by Lockheed Martin, Jacobs, and Centerra Group – the latter of which is the only holdover. Leidos and Centerra are part of a new venture seeking the service contract, company sources have acknowledged.
Lockheed and MSA are listed as defendants, along with Jorge Francisco Armijo, an executive with both entities.
The defendants argue, among other things, that the government is trying to trump up a disagreement over contract reimbursement into a fraud case. A motions hearing was held at the end of October in U.S. District Court for the District of Washington, but no ruling has been made.
