NOAA's documentation fended off $8B vehicle bid protest

Two things collided in a protest involving an $8 billion contract vehicle: an agency’s documentation of its decision-making process and the protester’s apparently incomplete responses to parts of the solicitation.

In a post-award protest, FedWriters complained the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration didn’t properly evaluate its proposal to win a spot on the ProTech 2.0 small business contract for professional services.

NOAA picked 15 companies for the vehicle's domain focused on satellites, but left off FedWriters and AttainX. Both companies lost their protests at the Government Accountability Office.

We covered GAO's denial of the AttainX protest Thursday. That company fell short because their proposal lacked the details that NOAA was looking for.

FedWriters ran into a similar issue. NOAA found that FedWriters didn’t provide enough examples of its work or fully explain it in the company's proposal. The company didn’t adequately demonstrate their level of experience, according to GAO’s decision.

The company received too many Low Confidence ratings in the solicitation’s various service areas during phase two of the competition.

In the service area for system ground segment products: FedWriters cited an example of work it does for NOAA’s Real-Time Coastal Observation Network, but did not identify the activities performed. NOAA wanted information on system components, interfaces, and interconnectivity that would demonstrate experience relevant to what was called for in the solicitation.

FedWriters had similar problems with other service areas. They cited a relevant example but didn’t provide enough details for NOAA to see.

What also stands out in the GAO decision are the numerous references to NOAA’s “contemporaneous evaluation.” Those are the notes that NOAA took as it evaluated the proposal.

It’s significant that NOAA can rely on these to defend not selecting FedWriters for an award. The agency isn’t recreating its decision-making process for the protest.

Protest decisions rely on documentation many times. GAO likes that a lot. It is hard to win a post-award protest when the agency has the documentation that explains its decision.

Conversely, we see agencies lose protests when they can’t produce that documentation.

Unfortunately for FedWriters, NOAA's notes were too much to overcome.