U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will go forward with a procurement for telecommunications the Government Accountability Office says "appears to be inconsistent" with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, but which the GAO says in a bid protest decision published April 12 that it's powerless to stop.

At issue is a USCIS task order issued under the General Services Administration's Networx telecom vehicle for data center hosting and connectivity. The agency gave the task order to its incumbent provider, Verizon (NYSE: VZ), but Networx contractor holder Qwest (now CenturyLink, NYSE: CTL), protested the award to the GAO.

USCIS, Qwest alleged, erred in evaluating its price offer as if it were $13.9 million higher--the amount the federal agency said it would have to spend on transition costs away from Verizon were it to go with another telecom provider. Adding nearly $14 million onto the price of any other company besides Verizon made the price evaluation fundamentally unfair and a "de facto sole source award to the incumbent," Qwest told the GAO.

The evaluation scheme "appears to be inconsistent with Federal Acquisition Regulation," the protest decision states. Specifically, Part 45.202, which instructs contracting officers to adjust the price offer of any contractor in possession of government property by adding to the evaluation how much it would cost to rent that equipment. Not only did the USCIS not add the price of renting the equipment to Verizon's offer, but it added to Qwest's price offer the putative full cost of purchasing new all government equipment currently onsite at the Verizon facility.

However, despite appearances of inconsistency with the FAR, the GAO says it cannot recommend that USCIS overturn the decision, because the GAO in this case lacks jurisdiction to do so.

The value of the Networx task order is less than the threshold under which the GAO can hear protests for orders under indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts filed for any other reason other than that the order exceeds the IDIQ scope or IDIQ maximum value.

The threshold requires the order be worth more than $10 million--meaning that while the GAO cannot issue a recommendation on the protest, that USCIS's evaluation penalty for any other provider other than Verizon was also worth more than the contract itself, making it impossible under the agency's proposal evaluation design for any company but Verizon to win.

In response to a query, USCIS spokesman Bill Wright said that "as a result of the dismissed protest, USCIS is proceeding with the initial contract award made to Verizon."

For more:
- download the GAO bid protest decision, B-404845 (.pdf)

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