[Protest of Army Contract Award for Operation of Radar Devices]

A firm protested an Army cost-plus-award-fee contract award under a solicitation for the operation of radar devices for a 5-year period. The protester, the incumbent contractor for the past 15 years, contended that: (1) the Army refused to provide it with access to certain documents for the development of its protest; (2) the awardee improperly based its proposal on the use of the protester's work force despite the fact that it would not be available to the awardee; (3) the awardee proposed full performance commencing 1 month later than the required schedule; (4) the awardee did not provide the Army with resumes or letters of commitment for key personnel; and (5) the awardee did not include portal-to-portal pay in its employee compensation rates proposal. GAO found that: (1) under the Competition in Contracting Act, the contracting agency has the primary responsibility for determining which documents are subject to release; (2) under the Freedom of Information Act, it has no authority to determine what information agencies must disclose; (3) the Army did consider the possibility that the awardee would be less successful in recruiting the protester's work force but found that the projected cost savings were of sufficient advantage to the government to offset that possibility; (4) there was no merit in the allegation concerning the awardee's compliance with the solicitation's staffing and manning requirements; (5) there was no basis to question the Army's evaluation of the awardee's proposal concerning costs associated with the awardee's performance schedule where the Army adjusted upward the awardee's performance costs to cover initial performance period which the awardee failed to adequately cost; and (6) the allegation that the projected cost of portal-to-portal pay should be added to the cost of the awardee's proposal was speculative. Accordingly, the protest was denied.