[Protest of USDA Task Order Award]

A firm protested a Department of Agriculture (USDA) task order award to another firm under an indefinite quantity contract for architectural and engineering (A/E) services. The protester contended that the task order was improperly awarded because the services required under the order were not A/E services and should have been procured competitively. The protester requested contract award to itself and reimbursement of its proposal preparation costs. Under a purchase order, the protester had written a statement of work to be used to revise the master plan for an arboretum. USDA reviewed the statement of work (SOW) and the protester's unsolicited proposal to perform the contract and determined that the work required an A/E firm. Since the protester was not so listed in USDA files, and since its preparation of the SOW might constitute a conflict of interest, USDA determined that a sole-source award to the protester could not be justified, and it issued a task order for the work to a firm holding an A/E contract with USDA. The responsibility for determining whether a firm has a conflict of interest and to what extent a firm should be excluded from competition rests with the procuring agency, and GAO will not overturn such a determination unless it is shown to be unreasonable. Federal Acquisition Regulations prohibit firms which draft SOW's from competing for the same work. Therefore, GAO did not find the agency's determination that the protester had a conflict of interest to be unreasonable. Since the protester was ineligible for contract award, it was not an interest party and GAO would not consider the remaining issues raised by the protester or its claim for proposal preparation costs. Accordingly, the protest was denied in part and dismissed in part.