BNUMBER:  B-281141.3           
DATE:  February 16, 1999
TITLE: Clean Service Company, Inc., B-281141.3, February 16, 1999
**********************************************************************

Matter of:Clean Service Company, Inc.

File:B-281141.3          
        
Date:February 16, 1999

David A. Nold, Esq., Young, deNormandie & Oscarsson, for the 
protester. 
LTC Richard B. O'Keeffe, Jr., and Roy L. Masengale, Esq., Department 
of the Army, for the agency. 
C. Douglas McArthur, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Exclusion of a proposal from the competitive range is proper based on 
significant informational deficiencies, even where the deficiencies 
stem from removal of portions of the protester's proposal in excess of 
a page limitation stated in the solicitation; an offeror who submits a 
proposal in excess of page limitations risks exclusion of its proposal 
from the competitive range if it cannot establish the acceptability of 
its approach within those limitations.

DECISION

Clean Service Company, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Action 
Service Company under request for proposals (RFP) No. 
DAKF57-98-R-0004, issued by the Department of the Army for cooking 
waste removal at Fort Lewis, Washington.  Clean Service argues that 
the agency improperly evaluated its proposal, by ignoring all pages in 
excess of a page limitation established by the RFP.

We deny the protest.

On June 22, 1998, the agency issued the RFP for a fixed price contract 
for a 1-year base period, with three 1-year option periods for 
cleaning, disposal, and removal of waste cooking grease, grease trap, 
and oil/water separator and dewater digester sludge at Fort Lewis, 
Wash.  The RFP  sec.  M.1.1.1 advised offerors that evaluators would use 
the criteria of section L to determine the merit of proposals;  sec.  M.2.1 
advised offerors that the agency intended to make award to the best 
overall proposal, considering three factors, as follows:  technical 
(quality); past performance; and price.  Technical (quality) included 
three subfactors, as follows:  equipment and management work plan that 
complied with the work requirement (including a requirement for a 
safety and health plan, (SHP)); specialized experience; and quality 
control plan.  RFP  sec.  M.2.3.  Technical (quality) and past performance 
would be more important than price in the agency's selection 
decision.[1]

Section L.14, the instructions for preparing proposals, indicated 
that, apart from the cover sheet, technical proposals should contain 
no reference to the offeror's name and should use generic terms such 
as "our company" and "our office," etc.  It required the submission of 
five copies, each numbered for control purposes, in three parts.  Part 
I would be the executed RFP, including the representations and 
certifications; part II would contain price information, entered in 
section B of the RFP.  RFP  sec.  L.14.3, L.14.4.  Section L.14.5 stated 
as follows:

     Part III:  Technical Proposal.  The offeror shall submit a 
     technical proposal that completely addresses all evaluation 
     areas, specifically identifying how each proposed contractual 
     requirement shall be satisfied.  The technical proposal shall 
     include:  an Equipment and Management Work Plan; Specialized 
     Experience; and a Quality Control Plan.  Limit pages to a maximum 
     of ten printed front and back (20 printed pages).  The total 
     shall include all attachments . . . .

The agency received and referred to evaluators three proposals, which 
came from the protester, from the eventual awardee, and from a third 
firm, Calixto.  As a result of the evaluation, the agency rated the 
protester's proposal as excellent, with 406 of a possible 500 points; 
Calixto's proposal as satisfactory (374 points); and Action's proposal 
as susceptible of being made acceptable (336 points).[2]  Evaluators 
noted "[a] very thorough safety plan" as a strength of the protester's 
proposal.  Contract Review Board Memorandum at 7.

Although Action had offered a lower price, the agency selected the 
protester for award based on its technical score (highest) and price 
(second low).  Action filed a size status protest, which was denied, 
and a protest with the agency; in responding to the protest, agency 
counsel noted that Clean Service's technical proposal, at 38 pages, 
was almost double the allowed length of 20 pages.  Evaluators then 
reevaluated the protester's proposal, considering only the first 20 
pages permitted by the solicitation.  Evaluators found that the excess 
pages, eliminated from consideration, contained information necessary 
to demonstrate the acceptability of Clean Service's proposal, 
including all information on the quality control subfactor.  As a 
result, evaluators reduced the protester's technical score by a total 
of 233 points, down to a total of 173 points.[3]

Based on this reevaluation, the agency found Clean Service's proposal 
technically unacceptable and, by letter of October 15, eliminated it 
from the competitive range.  Since the agency considered Calixto's 
price unreasonable (substantially higher than the prices of the other 
two competitors), it entered into discussions with Action, which had 
submitted the only reasonably priced proposal that could be made 
acceptable without being rewritten.  The agency subsequently awarded a 
contract to Action and provided a debriefing to the protester on 
October 27.  Clean Service filed a protest with the agency and, after 
the agency denied that protest on October 28, with our Office.

The protester points out that the deficiencies in its proposal result 
entirely from the elimination of the last 18 pages of its proposal.  
In this respect, the protester contends that, if evaluators removed 
its 20-page SHP, behind page 3, from its proposal, these deficiencies 
would disappear.  It characterizes the submission of the SHP as a 
"clerical error" and argues that the SHP was clearly labeled an 
"attachment," as permitted by RFP  sec.  L.14.5 and that counting the pages 
of such attachments as part of the permitted 20 pages is unreasonable 
and inconsistent with the requirements, purpose, and intent of the 
page limitation in the RFP.

Contrary to the protester's argument, we find that RFP  sec.  L.14.5 quoted 
above could not be clearer in warning offerors that the 20-page limit 
would include attachments.  Our standard for reviewing the evaluation 
of proposals and the determination whether to exclude a proposal from 
the competitive range is based on reasonableness and consistency with 
the criteria and language of the solicitation.  WP Photographic 
Servs., B-278897.4, May 12, 1998, 98-1 CPD  para.  151 at 3.  Where, as 
here, an offeror chooses to disregard page limitations, or is 
otherwise unable to demonstrate the merit of its proposal within the 
established limits, it assumes the risk that the agency will exclude 
the proposal from the competitive range, and it is not entitled to a 
further opportunity to expand or correct its proposal through 
discussions.  Infotec Dev., Inc., B-238980, July 20, 1990, 90-2 CPD  para.  
58 at 4-5.  The agency's determination to reevaluate the proposal, 
without the excess pages, was both reasonable and consistent with the 
RFP.

We note here that the record shows that inclusion of the SHP with the 
proposal was more than a "clerical error."  The protester's letter of 
protest to the agency and its letter of protest to our Office view 
"attachments" as separate from the proposal and imply that the 
protester viewed the use of "attachments" as a means of avoiding the 
solicitation's page restrictions.  Protester Letter of October 26, 
1998 (agency-level protest) at 2; Protest at 3.  The SHP was clearly 
prepared for the proposal, using the term "the company" rather than 
any specific reference to Clean Service; as the agency pointed out in 
denying the protest, its location in the proposal was consistent with 
the format used by the protester, a paragraph by paragraph response to 
the statement of work.  The excess pages resulted in a perceived 
strength in the initial evaluation, as noted above.  Contrary to the 
protester's implication, there is no ambiguity in the RFP instruction, 
which as noted above, states that the agency will include attachments 
in the 20-page limitation.  From the record, it appears that the 
Source Selection Evaluation Plan, provided to evaluators, made no 
reference to the page limit; in any event, less than a week passed 
after the filing of Action's protest before the agency realized its 
error and determined to take corrective action in response to that 
protest.  Since the SHP was a required part of the technical proposal, 
the protester's contention that eliminating the SHP from its proposal 
would have cured other deficiencies in that proposal is incorrect.  
The absence of the SHP from Clean Service's proposal would have been a 
material omission.  We are unable to conclude that the agency's 
refusal to take on the burden of editing the proposal to bring it 
within page limitations was either unreasonable or inconsistent with 
the RFP.  See All Star Maintenance, Inc., B-244143, Sept. 26, 1991, 
91-2 CPD  para.  294 at 3 (A primary purpose of page limitations is to save 
the time of evaluators, as well to save expense for offerors).

Finally, the FAR Part 15 rewrite provides that "[b]ased on the ratings 
of each proposal against all evaluation criteria, the contracting 
officer shall establish a competitive range comprised of all of the 
most highly rated proposals."  FAR  sec.  15.306(c)(1); see SDS Petroleum 
Prods., Inc., supra.  We have concluded that the Part 15 rewrite does 
not require that agencies retain a proposal in the competitive range 
simply to avoid a competitive range of one; conducting discussions and 
requesting best and final offers from offerors with no reasonable 
chance of award would benefit neither the offerors nor the government.  
Id. at 6; see also 62 Fed. Reg. 51,224, 51,226 (1997) (retaining 
marginal offers in competitive range imposes additional and largely 
futile effort and cost on government and industry).

Here, based on the reevaluation, the agency decided to limit 
discussions to Action because Calixto's price was determined 
unreasonably high and Clean Service's proposal, based on the first 20 
pages allowed by the solicitation, was technically unacceptable, rated 
low under the rating scheme and would require a major rewrite to 
correct.  Thus, in our view, Action's proposal was reasonably 
considered the only one with a reasonable chance for award.  While the 
agency could have chosen to amend the RFP to eliminate the page limit 
and reopen the competition, or under the circumstances here, to hold 
discussions with Clean Service, it was not required to do either.  We 
think that, once the agency realized, during the course of Action's 
protest, that Clean Service's proposal substantially exceeded the 
RFP's page limit, the agency's decision to hold discussions with 
Action alone was reasonable and well within the broad discretion 
afforded to an agency in taking corrective action to ensure a fair and 
impartial competition.  See Main Bldg. Maintenance, Inc., B-279191.3, 
Aug. 5, 1998, 98-2 CPD  para.  47 at 3; FAR  sec.  15.306(c).

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. Section M.2.3 indicated that within the factor of technical 
(quality), the equipment and management work plan would be of slightly 
more importance, with the subfactors of specialized experience and 
quality control plan of equal importance.  Section C.1.4.3 set forth 
the required elements of the management plan, including an SHP ( sec.  
C.1.4.3.1.12).  Under the evaluation plan, the equipment and 
management work plan was potentially worth 200 of 500 total points 
that could be earned for technical (quality) in the evaluation, with 
specialized experience and the quality control plan potentially worth 
150 points each.

2. The language "susceptible of being made acceptable" reflects the 
standard for establishing competitive range that existed prior to the 
rewrite of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 15.  SDS 
Petroleum Prods., Inc., B-280430, Sept. 1, 1998, 98-2 CPD  para.  59 at 5.

3. For the subfactor of equipment and management work plan, the 
protester's score decreased from 160 to 63 points; for specialized 
experience, it decreased by 29 points, from 139 points down to 110 
points; for the quality control plan the protester's score was zero, 
down from 107 points.