As the National Nuclear Security Administration reevaluates contractors' proposals to run its Y-12 and Pantex sites, a Babcock & Wilcox-led consortium has lost a legal protest of the way those proposals are evaluated.
The stakes are high for B&W, which has managed the sites for more than a decade but lost the contract to Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security earlier this year. The Government Accountability Office sided with NPP when it protested the initial procurement decision, forcing the NNSA to reevaluate the feasibility of attaining cost savings outlined in each bid. As the NNSA began to do so, NPP filed another protest. Among its contentions, NPP said the agency should take new information into account. It also maintained that NNSA's review, which did not let bidders change the amounts of cost savings they initially promised, should allow the companies to revise more sections of their original bids. On Tuesday, a GAO decision denied NPP's protests or rejected them as premature.
In a prepared response to the decision, B&W Technical Services Group President George Dudich said, "With the agency maintaining that most of NPP's protest is premature, we look forward to NNSA's next steps in the process, knowing the strength of our proposal and team."