Boise Cascade Wood Products, LLC

B-413987.2 Apr 03, 2017 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Boise Cascade Wood Products, LLC (Boise), a small business of Monmouth, Oregon, requests that we recommend reimbursement of the costs of filing and pursuing its protest of Forest Service solicitation FS-2400-14BV for a transaction that involves both a timber sale and a procurement of services. Boise contends that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest. Boise also asserts that its protest of the transaction was filed under our Office's statutory bid protest jurisdiction, and was not a nonstatutory protest to which the exception to recommendations for the payment of costs set forth in our Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. 21.13(b), would apply. We deny the request for reimbursement. We deny the request for reimbursement. View Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version, with no redactions, has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of:  Boise Cascade Wood Products, LLC File:  B-413987.2 Date:  April 3, 2017 Elizabeth E. Howard, Esq., Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, P.C., for the protester. Lori Polin Jones, Esq., Department of Agriculture, United States Forest Service, for the agency. Michael Willems, Esq., Eric Ransom, Esq., and Edward Goldstein, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Request that GAO recommend reimbursement of the protester’s costs of filing and pursuing a protest concerning a timber sale under the authority of 16 U.S.C. § 6591c, which resulted in agency corrective action, is denied where protests of timber sales under 16 U.S.C. § 6591c are not within GAO’s statutory bid protest jurisdiction, but are instead considered pursuant to an agreement with the Forest Service, and reimbursement would be inappropriate in the context of our regulatory prohibition on recommending the reimbursement of protest costs when a nonstatutory protest is sustained. DECISION Boise Cascade Wood Products, LLC (Boise), a small business of Monmouth, Oregon, requests that we recommend reimbursement of the costs of filing and pursuing its protest of Forest Service solicitation FS-2400-14BV for a transaction that involves both a timber sale and a procurement of services.  Boise contends that the agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious protest.  Boise also asserts that its protest of the transaction was filed under our Office’s statutory bid protest jurisdiction, and was not a nonstatutory protest to which the exception to recommendations for the payment of costs set forth in our Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. § 21.13(b), would apply. We deny the request for reimbursement. BACKGROUND On July 18, 2016, the Forest Service issued solicitation FS-2400-14BV for a forest stewardship contract in the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis, Oregon.  The Forest Service is authorized to enter into contracts to perform stewardship projects in the national forests, and these contracts typically involve the sale of timber or forest products and the performance of certain services in furtherance of the agency’s land management goals.  See 16 U.S.C. § 6591c.  Additionally, 16 U.S.C. § 6591c(d)(2) provides that such contracts “may, at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture, be considered a contract for the sale of property under such terms as the Secretary may prescribe without regard to any other provision of law.”  The Forest Service’s implementing regulations provide that when the value of timber or other forest products removed through the contract exceeds the total value of the services received, the transaction shall be conducted in accordance with the procedures used for a sale of property.  See 36 C.F.R. § 223.301(b)(2). The solicitation required bidders to propose cash bids and agree to perform certain forest road maintenance and tree replanting services for the Forest Service in exchange for the right to remove approximately 17,000 tons of timber.  Solicitation at 1-2.  The solicitation provided that bids would be evaluated on the basis of four factors:  (1) technical approach; (2) capability and past performance; (3) local workforce utilization; and (4) price.  Id.