Protests Against Exclusion From Competitive Range

Two firms protested their exclusion from the competitive range under a request for proposals (RFP) issued by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for a cost-reimbursement, level-of-effort contract for clinical technical assistance to federally-funded State and local treatment programs. Both protesters alleged that there were errors in the evaluation process, and that their exclusion from the competitive range was unreasonable. Specifically, the protesters' alleged that the evaluation committee departed from the listed evaluation criteria and scored the proposals on the basis of extraneous beliefs and biases. Both protesters cited performance of similar NIDA contracts as evidence of their capability. The protesters also charged that the evaluation panel was biased, and suggested that the evaluation panel was not selected in accordance with NIDA policy. Finally, one of the protester's alleged that its exclusion was part of a pattern of de facto debarment by NIDA. GAO held that: (1) it could find no evidence that the evaluation committee did not evaluate the proposals according to the criteria stated in the RFP; (2) it would not reevaluate technical proposals; (3) the NIDA technical determination excluding the protesters from the competitive range was reasonable; (4) there was no basis for favoring incumbents or previous contractors in the competitive range determinations; (5) the contracting agency could eliminate an incumbent from the competitive range for failing to translate whatever capabilities which may have accrued from its incumbency into an initial proposal; (6) an agency could properly exclude a technically unacceptable proposal from the competitive range after an initial evaluation, without considering cost; (7) the protesters' failed to present specific evidence of bias on the part of the evaluating panel; and (8) an agency's refusal to conduct negotiations with a technically unacceptable offeror did not constitute de facto debarment. Accordingly, the protests were denied.