[Protest of FEMA Rejection of Proposal for Publication Preparation]

A firm protested the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) rejection of its bid for the preparation of a publication, contending that FEMA: (1) should have conducted a preaward debriefing to explain the rejection; and (2) violated procurement regulations prohibiting preselection by including provisions in the solicitation which precluded it from competing. GAO held that: (1) FEMA properly evaluated the protester's bid and rejected it as technically inferior; and (2) the portion of the protest alleging that the solicitation's language excluded the protester from the competitive range was untimely filed after bid opening. Accordingly, the protest was denied in part and dismissed in part.