Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.--Reconsideration and Costs, B-283081.4; B-283081.5, April 14, 2000

Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.--Reconsideration and Costs, B-283081.4; B-283081.5, April 14, 2000 TITLE: Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.--Reconsideration and Costs, B-283081.4; B-283081.5, April 14, 2000 BNUMBER: B-283081.4; B-283081.5 DATE: April 14, 2000 ********************************************************************** Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.--Reconsideration and Costs, B-283081.4; B-283081.5, April 14, 2000 Decision Matter of: Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.--Reconsideration and Costs File: B-283081.4; B-283081.5 Date: April 14, 2000 Kai David Midboe, Esq., Midboe, Guirard, Davis, Melton and Tarpley, for the protester. Edward Goldstein, Esq., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for the agency. David A. Ashen, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Reimbursement of protest costs relating to protest of original evaluation and to protest of subsequent reevaluation, undertaken after prior protest of original evaluation led to corrective action, is recommended where agency's implementation of initial corrective action failed to address a meritorious issue clearly raised in the original protest, such that protester was put to the expense of protesting a second time on the same ground. DECISION Louisiana Clearwater, Inc. requests that we reconsider our decision of October 12, 1999 (B-283081.3), in which we dismissed Louisiana Clearwater's protest against the results of a reevaluation of proposals undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which affirmed the award of a contract to Chem-Spray-South, Inc. (CSSI), under request for proposals (RFP) No. DACW29-99-R-0011 (RFP-0011), for aquatic vegetation control. In addition, Louisiana Clearwater requests that we recommend reimbursement of the costs of filing and pursuing its protest. We deny the requests, but recommend reimbursement of the costs of filing and pursuing Louisiana Clearwater's protests. On April 9, 1999, the Corps's New Orleans District issued RFP-0011 for aquatic vegetation control in Southern Louisiana through the application of liquid herbicidal materials. A contract was awarded to CSSI (on June 9), and Louisiana Clearwater filed a protest with our Office on June 23. In its protest, Louisiana Clearwater argued in part that the Corps's evaluation of offerors' experience, the most important of the five technical evaluation factors, was inconsistent with the scoring approach set forth in the solicitation. Specifically, Louisiana Clearwater noted that the RFP required offerors to submit an "initial summarization" of their experience which will be considered as the highest priority with the following subfactors carrying a weight of descending importance. . . . . . SUBFACTORS OF FACTOR 1. EXPERIENCE. The following factors will be considered along with FACTOR 1, in their order of relative importance: 1. Federal Government contracts. . . . 2. State Government contracts. . . . 3. Local Government contracts. . . . 4. Commercial contracts or agreements. . . . RFP sect. M.(ii). Louisiana Clearwater furnished with its protest a written statement from the Corps of the evaluation scores which confirmed that, as Louisiana Clearwater had been advised at its debriefing, the agency had accorded equal weight in the evaluation to each type of contract experience. Corps Letter to Counsel for Louisiana Clearwater (June 16, 1999). Louisiana Clearwater argued that this equal weighting was inconsistent with the solicitation statement that the types of experience were listed in descending order of importance, such that federal contract experience was more important than state experience, state experience more important than local government experience, and local government experience more important than commercial experience. In addition, Louisiana Clearwater asserted that the evaluation of proposals otherwise was unreasonable; that the agency improperly evaluated the awardee's ability to perform the contract; and that one of the evaluators and another agency official were biased against it. By letter dated July 8, the Corps advised our Office that the contracting officer had "decided to take corrective action by conducting an independent re-evaluation of the proposals." Noting that Louisiana Clearwater had alleged bias on the part of an evaluator, the Corps stated as follows: While the [contracting officer] has not concluded that the evaluation was anything less than impartial, she has recognized that the mere appearance of impropriety or impartiality can undermine the integrity of the government procurement process . . . . Therefore, in an effort to remove any appearance that would tend to [compromise] the objectivity and impartiality of the procurement process in this case, the [contracting officer] has directed that personnel from the U.S.