GAO rejects Marinette protest over Deepwater cutter

The Government Accountability Office has rejected a bid protest from Marinette Marine Corp. over a Coast Guard ship-building contract awarded to Bollinger Shipyards Inc.

“Yesterday we denied the protest of Marinette against the Coast Guard’s award to Bollinger,” said Michael R. Golden, managing associate general counsel of GAO’s procurement law division. No further information is available because the case is under protective order, he said.

Marinette filed the bid protest in October, a month after the Coast Guard made the $88 million contract award to Bollinger. The contract is for design and construction of the Sentinel-class patrol boat as part of the Integrated Deepwater Systems asset replacement program.

The approximate value of this contract, if all options are exercised for a total of 34 patrol boats, is $1.5 billion over a period of between six and eight years.

The watchdog group Project on Government Oversight expressed concerns about the Bollinger award on its blog today.

“We are of course very pleased with GAO’s decision,” Rear Adm. Gary Blore, assistant commandant for acquisition, said in a statement today. “The Coast Guard had been confident, especially given the acquisition reforms our agency has put in place and with the rigor and discipline followed throughout the process for this patrol boat contract award, that GAO would ultimately uphold the Coast Guard’s decision.”