NNSA declines to comment on new protest over Y-12, Pantex contract

Federal officials and a contracting team declined to comment Tuesday on a new protest filed over the competition to manage and operate the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas.

The Babcock and Wilcox Co. announced Monday that its contracting team, Nuclear Production Partners LLC, or NP2, has filed a new protest with the Government Accountability Office related to the consolidated Y-12 and Pantex contract.

The new protest came about five months after earlier protests filed by NP2 and another contracting team, Integrated Nuclear Production Solutions LLC. Those protests were filed in January, after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced it had awarded a contract valued at about $23 billion to Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC, or CNS, to manage and operate Y-12 and Pantex.

In April, the original protests were upheld in part by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO recommended that the procurement be re-opened, more information requested from the bidders about their proposed cost savings, and the relative size of each team’s proposed cost savings evaluated.

Then, in May, the NNSA announced it would request more information from the three teams that had submitted bids.

In a press release Monday regarding the new protest, the NP2 team said it was concerned about the “fairness of the procurement and selection process and the form and scope of the revised request for proposals issued to bidders on June 6.”

B&W and the NP2 team had several concerns related to the procurement process, said George Dudich, president of Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Group Inc.

“We are asking the Government Accountability Office to examine the fairness of the revised request for proposals and to ensure the RFP meets all government contracting requirements and fully addresses the GAO’s original decision and recommendation outlined on April 29, 2013, when our original protest was sustained,” Dudich said.

On Tuesday, B&W declined to provide more information.

NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha said he could not comment on the new protest. He could not confirm that a revised request for proposals was issued June 6, provide information on other dates, or give anticipated dates for any more contract announcements.

For now, details of the process, including information on any deadlines, are being kept between the NNSA and the bidders, McConaha said.

“We’re working with them to get the process complete,” he said. “We’re just not going to get into the back-and-forth with the bidders.”