Cosmodyne, Inc.--Reconsideration, B-271838.2, May 23, 1997

B-271838.2 May 23, 1997 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Request for reconsideration is denied where protester fails to demonstrate that decision erred in finding that awardee's liquid oxygen/nitrogen generator complied with solicitation requirement for prior deployment of the unit and that modifications to awardee's previously deployed unit were minor. Protester's argument that awardee's liquid oxygen/nitrogen generator will not be able to continue operating after a chemical warfare agent attack due to co-adsorption of carbon dioxide is without merit where protester itself concedes that co-adsorption will not occur if the unit contains [DELETED] for chemical warfare agent capture. Nor will we consider arguments that could have been. Were not. View Decision Matter of: Cosmodyne, Inc.--Reconsideration File: B-271838.2 Date: May 23, 1997 * REDACTED DECISION DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Cosmodyne, Inc. requests reconsideration of our decision, Cosmodyne, Inc., B-271838, July 30, 1996, 96-2 CPD Para. 78, in which we denied its protest of the selection of Pacific Consolidated Industries (PCI) for award under request for proposals (RFP) No. 68335-95-R-0003, a small business set-aside for liquid oxygen/nitrogen generators capable of operating in an environment contaminated with nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare agents. Cosmodyne contends that our decision contains a number of errors. We deny the request for reconsideration. Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration, the requesting party must show either that our prior decision contains 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). Neither repetition of arguments made during our consideration of the original protest nor mere disagreement with our decision meets this standard. Dictaphone Corp.--Recon., B-244691.3, Jan. 5, 1993, 93-1 CPD Para. 2. Nor will we consider arguments that could have been, but were not, raised during our initial consideration of the protest since to do so would undermine the goal of our bid protest forum--to produce fair and equitable decisions based on consideration of the parties' argument on a fully developed record. Ford Contracting Co.--Recon., B-248007.3; B-248007.4, Feb. 2, 1993, 93-1 CPD Para. 90. Cosmodyne argues first that we erred in concluding that PCI had complied with the solicitation requirement that the generator offered previously have been deployed. The protester contends that PCI does not meet this requirement because it has not previously deployed a 2-ton generator with NBC protection. We addressed this argument in our decision, noting that the RFP required that "the unit without the minor modifications necessary to meet the requirements of the solicitation" (emphasis added) to have been deployed previously, and not that the precise unit have previously been deployed. We found that to meet the requirements of the solicitation here, PCI had made only two minor modifications to a unit that it had previously deployed to [DELETED]. One of those modifications was the substitution of [DELETED], a change undertaken to assure compliance with the RFP requirement for NBC protection. In other words, even assuming that the generator deployed by the [DELETED] was not NBC-protected--a point which, as discussed in our decision, both PCI and the Navy dispute [1] --PCI still complied with the requirement for prior deployment because the substitution of [DELETED] resulted in only minor modification of the unit. Thus, the record does not establish that we erred in finding that PCI had satisfied the prior deployment requirement. The protester also argues that we incorrectly relied upon PCI's representation that the only modifications that it had made to its previously deployed unit to comply with the requirements of the solicitation here were the previously discussed substitution of [DELETED]. Cosmodyne insists that it is clear from the evaluation record that at least one additional modification was required: substitution of a higher flow capacity air compressor. [2] Along the same lines, the protester argues that we incorrectly determined that substitution of [DELETED] assembly for a standard HEPA filter would require only minor modification of the unit. The protester maintains that at least [DELETED] would be required to cover the air compressor's air flow, [3] and that substitution of [DELETED] for the standard filter would require significant redesign of the unit. [4] With regard to the first of these two arguments, it was--and continues to be--our understanding based on the record here that a higher flow capacity air compressor was not required, as the agency's technical expert had originally thought, because the air compressor used in PCI's 1.85-ton/day unit had excess capacity and was in fact adequately sized to process 2.0 tons/day.