Is Eagle II getting ready for flight?
By
Nick Wakeman
The Homeland Security Department has been asking small businesses that bid on the service delivery portion of the Eagle II contract to update their points of contact, which is usually a precursor to an announcement.
Something is afoot with the Homeland Security Department’s Eagle II contract. I’ve been in touch with two companies that have told me that the department reached out to them last week looking for updates on their contract points of contact -- a strong indicator that announcement is imminent.
Both of these companies are in the small-business portion of functional category 1, for service delivery.
DHS has told these companies that the protests in this category have “cleared,” and that the agency is preparing a formal announcement.
There were several protests in this area of the contract and some were still pending early last week, but when Business Integra, an unsuccessful protester, went to the Court of Federal Claims, it led the Government Accountability Office to dismiss the remaining protests. GAO generally backs away from protests when there is a pending case in front of federal court.
My understanding is that this has given DHS the opening it needs to proceed with the awards it has made in this category.
One source from a small-business winner said that DHS issued a request for information, so it is already developing task orders for the contract.
I’m not sure of the impact on the large business awards in this category. DHS said earlier this year that it was taking a second look at all the awards in service delivery category of the contract. That led to the dismissal of all of the protests in that category. As far as I can tell, nothing has happened with the large awards.
But it looks like things are on the move now, at least with the small business awards. I’ll try to put out updates as quickly and thoroughly as I can.