GAO says Coast Guard should have more fully disclosed its concerns during contract deliberations

AMEC at work

The Government Accountability Office has sustained a contract award protest lodged by AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc., a huge design-build construction company headquartered in London, that felt the U.S. Coast Guard had evaluated its recent proposal incorrectly.

AMEC had argued that the Coast Guard, while scoring its proposal along with seven other competing proposals, had lowered AMEC’s overall grade because it deemed one construction site a potential “wetlands,” and because AMEC was planning to use Microsoft Project software, which the Coast Guard considers inappropriate for the complicated scheduling task

Ultimately, the GAO recommended that the Coast Guard should reopen its evaluation of all eight proposals, hold “meaningful discussions” with AMEC about its wetlands and software concerns, and re-award the five indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts. In addition, the GAO recommended that the Coast Guard reimburse AMEC for its costs in pursuing its protest, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.

The dispute arose out of a solicitation issued in January 2009 in which the Coast Guard contemplated the award of five IDIQ contracts for design-build, general construction, renovation, maritime construction and historical restoration and alterations throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Individual contracts would range between $3 million and $100 million, with the maximum for any one company set at $500 million.

After an initial down-select, the Coast Guard asked all eight finalists to bid on a “seed project,” the design and construction of a multi-mission facility at the Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May, NJ.

AMEC wasn’t awarded one of the five IDIQ contracts and, after being debriefed by the Coast Guard on its loss, AMEC lodged its protest, arguing that the procurement officials did not adequately explain their concerns about the New Jersey wetlands issue or AMEC’s planned use of the Microsoft Project software.

The GAO eventually decided that the Coast Guard had not adequately explained its actual concerns to AMEC. “An agency may not mislead an offeror – through the framing of a discussion question or a response to a question – into responding in a manner that does not address the agency’s concerns, or misinform the offeror concerning a problem with its proposal or about the government’s requirements,” concluded the GAO, in a decision released publicly on July 28.