William Welch Partner, McMahon, Welch and Learned PLLC- Washington Business Journal
The Government Accountability Office has said on many occasions that an agency is not required to neutralize or eliminate the natural competitive advantage that an incumbent carries into a competition. In this case, the agency decides that it would promote greater competition if it could neutralize the competitive advantage of a 25-year incumbent. The incumbent protested the terms of a solicitation that did just that.
Protesting contractor: New Mexico State University (NMSU), Las Cruces, New Mexico
Contracting agency: NASA
Protest issue: Whether the agency's attempt to neutralize the advantage of the incumbent through its pricing matrix is overly restrictive of competition.
Decision: Protest denied
Post-mortem: NMSU has been a 25-year incumbent on a contract for the operation and maintenance of NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, as well as several other balloon launch facilities at various locations worldwide. NMSU protested that the RFP improperly excludes from competition or evaluation the cost of various elements of the agency's requirements.
NASA has apparently been concerned for several years with NMSU's exclusive teaming agreement with the only balloon manufacturer that is acceptable to NASA for work on this project. Based on a teaming agreement with the manufacturer, NMSU enjoys a price advantage over any other concern seeking to purchase balloons from its exclusive qualifying subcontractor.
In the most recent competition, only one competitor submitted a proposal because of this exclusive teaming agreement. In this most recent competition, as part of the pricing model, NASA inserted a 'plug number,' or single fixed price that all competitors were required to use in pricing its proposal for the required balloons. This had the effect of normalizing across all competitors the price of the weather balloons necessary to perform this contract.
Entities 0 Name: NASA Count: 5 1 Name: NMSU Count: 4 2 Name: New Mexico State University Count: 1 3 Name: McMahon Count: 1 4 Name: Washington Count: 1 5 Name: Learned PLLC Count: 1 6 Name: Las Cruces Count: 1 7 Name: RFP Count: 1 8 Name: Welch Count: 1 9 Name: Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility Count: 1 10 Name: William Welch Partner Count: 1 11 Name: New Mexico Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1vN89GN Title: NASA's asteroid plan may be cheapest route to Mars Description: WASHINGTON - NASA plans to redirect a small asteroid into lunar orbit during the next decade as part of a steppingstone approach to landing astronauts on Mars by the 2030s. Some key leaders in Congress, which must approve funding for the mission, prefer returning to the moon.
Post a Comment for "A 25"