GAO Denies Protest of The Mission Essential Group, LLC on NSA Contract Exclusion
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied the protest filed by The Mission Essential Group, LLC (Mission Essential) challenging its exclusion from the competitive range in a National Security Agency (NSA) procurement for signals intelligence services. The case, B-423053; B-423053.2, involved the LUCIDLOBSTER contract, a cost-plus-fixed-fee agreement with technical task orders for providing active and passive signals intelligence. Mission Essential claimed the NSA’s evaluation of its proposal was flawed and unfair, but GAO found the agency’s decision to be reasonable and consistent with the solicitation.
The NSA’s solicitation required proposals to be evaluated based on management, ability to staff, small business participation, and cost. The management factor was the most critical and consisted of four subfactors: staffing, training, innovation, and corporate plan. The ability to staff factor assessed the realism of proposed labor rates. Cost was considered less important than technical factors.
Mission Essential’s proposal received an unacceptable rating under the management factor and a marginal rating under the ability to staff factor. Specifically, the company was rated unacceptable in two subfactors of the management factor—innovation and corporate plan—while earning a marginal rating for staffing. The NSA determined that Mission Essential’s proposal contained significant informational deficiencies and failed to provide required details, particularly in its approach to innovation and in its corporate plan, which did not fully address crisis management under the relevant Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) clause. The agency also found the proposal lacked a detailed staffing transition timeline for key personnel. Given these deficiencies, NSA excluded Mission Essential from the competitive range.
One of the primary issues in the protest was Mission Essential’s challenge to its unacceptable rating under the innovation subfactor. The NSA required bidders to outline a plan to integrate emerging technologies into the senior mentor role. Mission Essential's proposal focused on training improvements rather than innovation, leading the NSA to conclude that it failed to meet the solicitation’s requirement. Mission Essential argued that the senior mentor role itself was inherently about training and that its proposal should not have been penalized. However, GAO sided with the NSA, emphasizing that the requirement was specifically for a plan integrating emerging technologies, which the protester did not adequately address.
Another critical deficiency involved Mission Essential’s corporate plan, which was required to comply with DFARS 252.237-7024. The NSA found that Mission Essential’s plan did not provide specific details on maintaining essential services during a prolonged crisis, the potential time lapse in acquiring personnel, and the process for relocating employees or enabling remote work. Mission Essential contended that it had provided sufficient details and that the NSA had previously deemed a similar plan acceptable under a different solicitation. GAO ruled that the NSA was under no obligation to follow evaluations from a separate procurement and found the agency’s assessment reasonable.
The staffing subfactor evaluation also proved problematic for Mission Essential. The NSA required bidders to submit a credible and detailed staffing transition plan, ensuring all positions were filled within 90 days. Mission Essential proposed leveraging incumbent personnel but failed to provide a specific timeline for key roles, such as senior mentors and journeyman operators. GAO determined that Mission Essential’s reliance on incumbents, without detailing how they met LUCIDLOBSTER’s requirements, did not satisfy the solicitation’s expectations.
Another point of contention was the ability to staff factor, which evaluated proposed labor rates against the government’s independent cost estimate (ICE). The NSA found that 15 out of 18 labor categories in Mission Essential’s proposal had rates lower than the ICE, leading to a high risk of unsuccessful performance. Mission Essential argued that its rates were deemed realistic in the cost evaluation and should not have been used to justify a negative technical assessment. GAO ruled that the ability to staff factor was separate from cost realism and that the NSA had properly followed its stated evaluation methodology by comparing rates to the ICE.
Mission Essential also claimed the NSA engaged in disparate treatment by awarding strengths to other offerors for similar proposal elements while not crediting Mission Essential. GAO dismissed these claims, finding that the protester failed to show that it was unfairly disadvantaged.
Finally, Mission Essential raised allegations of organizational and personal conflicts of interest, suggesting that one of the successful offerors had unfair access to nonpublic information. However, because GAO determined that Mission Essential was properly excluded from the competitive range, it was no longer an interested party and lacked standing to challenge potential conflicts related to competitors.
The GAO’s decision underscores the importance of submitting detailed, compliant proposals that directly respond to each solicitation requirement. Even experienced contractors must carefully align their proposals with the agency’s stated criteria, as any failure to do so can result in exclusion from consideration. The ruling also highlights that low-cost proposals do not automatically secure a competitive edge if they fail to meet technical expectations.
This case serves as a crucial reminder that bidders must not only demonstrate compliance with solicitation requirements but also clearly articulate their approach in a manner that aligns with the evaluation criteria. Agencies are given broad discretion in their evaluations, and GAO will uphold their decisions as long as they are reasonable and consistent with the solicitation.
Disclaimer: This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The summary is based on publicly available GAO decisions and is not guaranteed to be accurate or comprehensive.
