Defense Logistics Agency; Moheat Environmental Services--
Case: B-270538.5
Agency: Department of Defense : Defense Logistics Agency
Protester: Defense Logistics Agency; Moheat Environmental Services
Date: 1996-11-20
Denied
Defense Logistics Agency; Moheat Environmental Services--
BNUMBER: B-270538.5; B-270538.6
DATE: November 20, 1996
TITLE: Defense Logistics Agency; Moheat Environmental Services--
Reconsideration
**********************************************************************
Matter of:Defense Logistics Agency; Moheat Environmental Services--
Reconsideration
File: B-270538.5; B-270538.6
Date:November 20, 1996
Kenneth A. Martin, Esq., Riley & Artabane, for Moheat Environmental
Services, Inc., the intervenor.
Gail West and Thomas J. Wallenfang, Defense Logistics Agency, for the
agency.
Henry J. Gorczycki, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of
the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the
decision.
DIGEST
Submission of additional information by an agency, which was available
and could have been submitted by the agency during the pendency of a
protest which was sustained, and expressions of disagreement with a
protest decision which fail to show that the decision was based on
either factual or legal error warranting reversal of that decision, do
not provide a sufficient basis for reconsideration of the protest
decision.
DECISION
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Moheat Environmental Services,
Inc. request reconsideration of our decision, PMT Servs., Inc.,
B-270538.2, Apr. 1, 1996, 96-2 CPD para. 98, which sustained PMT's protest
of DLA's evaluation of PMT's past performance and the award to Moheat
under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP4400-95-R-0016 for hazardous
waste disposal services at various locations in Texas.
We deny the requests for reconsideration.
Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration, the
requesting party must show that our prior decision may contain errors
of fact or law, or present information not previously considered that
warrants reversal or modification of our decision. 4 C.F.R. sec.
21.14(a) (1996). Information not previously considered which may
warrant reconsideration must have been unavailable to the requesting
party when the initial protest was being considered. CB Commercial
Gov't Servs. Group--Recon., B-259014.2, Apr. 3, 1995, 95-1 CPD para. 176.
Repetition of arguments made during consideration of the original
protest or mere disagreement with our decision does not provide a
basis for reconsideration. R.E. Scherrer, Inc.--Recon., B-231101.3,
Sept. 21, 1988, 88-2 CPD para. 274.
In sustaining the protest, we determined that DLA's cost/technical
tradeoff decision was unreasonable because it was based on an
inadequate evaluation of PMT's past performance. DLA alleges that our
decision was based on errors of fact that warrant reversal of the
decision. In order to identify these alleged errors, DLA now provides
additional information, including a detailed analysis of each
offeror's past performance history and the contract requirements,[1]
and also responds, for the first time, to statements made by PMT in
its protest letter and repeated in its subsequent comments on the
agency report. This is information which the agency could and should
have provided as part of its report on the protest; presentation of
this information now does not provide a basis for reconsideration. CB
Commercial Gov't Servs. Group--Recon., supra.
Moheat disagrees with our finding that DLA's evaluation of past
performance was inadequate and alleges that we improperly exceeded our
standard of review by imposing our own judgment in place of agency
discretion in the evaluation of proposals. Moheat also asserts that
this decision is incorrect because we did not find the evaluation to
be inconsistent with the stated evaluation criteria.
Our standard of review in protests against allegedly improper
evaluations is to examine the record to determine whether the agency's
judgment was reasonable and in accord with the stated evaluation
criteria. Chem-Servs. of Indiana, Inc., B-253905, Oct. 28, 1993, 93-2
CPD para. 262; SDA Inc., B-248528.2, Apr. 14, 1993, 93-1 CPD para. 320. Our
Office may, as we did in the challenged decision, question evaluations
and award decisions where they are not reasonably based or are
inadequately documented, even if they are otherwise consistent with
the evaluation criteria. SDA Inc., supra; Ashland Sales & Serv.,
Inc., B-255159, Feb. 14, 1994, 94-1 CPD para. 108.
In our decision, we found inadequately supported by the record the
agency's determination under the stated evaluation criteria that PMT's
proposal warranted a marginal rating because of PMT's prior contracts'
lack of similarity in complexity as compared to the solicitation
requirements. We thus concluded that the evaluation and source
selection were unreasonable based on the record; this is consistent
with and proper under the applicable standard of review. See id.
Moheat also contends that our decision was inconsistent with our
decision in Advanced Envtl.
Full decision text continues on ProtestIntel...