Request for Reconsideration

A firm requested reconsideration of an earlier decision which denied its protest of an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) contract award. The General Services Administration (GSA) had delegated to INS the authority to issue the request for proposals under a GSA Basic Agreement. In the prior decision, GAO concluded that the protester had submitted an eligible offer which was not evaluated by INS. However, it was also determined that, even when the protester's proposal was evaluated, the awardee's cost proposal remained the lowest of the two and the contract award was not unreasonable. The protester argued that the decision was erroneous, claiming that, since: (1) INS failed to evaluate the protester's eligible offer, it acted inconsistently with the terms of the GSA Basic Agreement, thus invalidating its delegated procurement authority; and (2) GAO agreed that the protester should have received a higher point score than the awardee, it was entitled to the contract on the basis of total points for technical, benchmark, and cost features. GAO held that, contrary to the protester's argument, the INS failure to evaluate its proposal was not a violation of the Basic Agreement. Further, the language used by the protester in its request simply restated GSA comments concerning this protest. Although the protester's offer received the highest evaluation score, GAO held that, when an agency regards proposals as essentially equal technically, cost or price may properly become the determinative consideration in making the award. Since the awardee's proposal remained the lowest cost proposal, the award by INS was reasonable. Accordingly, the prior decision was affirmed.