a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Chairman, Committee on 

Government Reform, House of 

Representatives

June 2006 DOE CONTRACTING

Better Performance 

Measures and 

Management Needed 

to Address Delays in 

Awarding Contracts

GAO-06-722
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

June 2006

DOE CONTRACTING

Better Performance Measures and 

Management Needed to Address Delays 

in Awarding Contracts 

Highlights of GAO-06-722, a report to the 

Chairman, Committee on Government 

Reform, House of Representatives

The Department of Energy (DOE),

the largest civilian contracting

agency in the federal government,

spends over 90 percent of its 

annual budget on contracts to

operate its facilities and carry out 

its diverse missions. Federal law 

and regulations outline the steps 

DOE must follow in planning and 

carrying out the contract award 

process and emphasize the 

importance of awarding contracts 

in a timely manner. Several of 

DOE’s recent contracts have taken 

much longer than anticipated to

award. GAO was asked to

determine (1) the extent to which

DOE has experienced delays in 

awarding contracts and factors 

contributing to delays, (2) the

impacts of any such delays, and (3) 

the extent to which DOE has taken 

steps to address the delays. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOE (1)

develop more accurate and

comprehensive performance 

measures for the timeliness of its 

contract awards and (2) establish a 

consistent system for identifying 

and sharing lessons learned and 

best practices on contract awards. 

In commenting on the report, DOE 

generally agreed with the 

recommendations but raised 

concerns about GAO’s sampling 

methodology, as well as GAO’s 

characterization of late contract

awards as delayed and DOE’s 

performance measures as 

incomplete. GAO believes that the 

methodology and conclusions are 

correct.

Delays in awarding DOE contracts occurred in most of the 31 contracts that 

GAO reviewed. In fiscal years 2002 through 2005, DOE awarded 131 

contracts valued at $5 million or greater; the 31 of these contracts GAO 

reviewed were affiliated with DOE’s three largest component organizations 

and represented about 73 percent of the dollars awarded. None of the 24 

contracts awarded competitively was awarded by the date planned in DOE’s 

schedule, with 23 of the contracts awarded between several weeks and 4-1/2 

years later than the planned date. Of the 7 contracts awarded without 

competition, 6 were awarded on time or nearly so, with the remaining 

contract awarded 2 months late. Delays in awarding contracts occurred, in 

part, because DOE had to modify its approach after beginning the contract 

award process. At least some of the delays were avoidable, such as when 

DOE reworked contract awards to correct errors. 

Delays in awarding contracts could increase costs both to DOE and 

companies competing for DOE work. Because the department does not track 

its costs for awarding contracts, it was not feasible to quantify the impact of 

these delays. Companies competing for DOE’s work may also face increased 

costs when contract awards are delayed, such as the costs associated with 

ensuring that key personnel identified in proposals continue to be available. 

Increased costs and delays may affect the willingness of companies to 

compete for future DOE work, although the actual impact is unknown. 

Until recently, DOE had not been addressing delays in awarding contracts 

because incomplete performance data indicated that most of the contracts 

were awarded in a timely manner. In late 2005, DOE began several efforts to 

improve its contract award process, including implementing improved 

measures of contract award timeliness and restructuring the Office of 

Environmental Management to strengthen management of the contracting 

process. However, two concerns could limit the effectiveness of these 

efforts: (1) the efforts do not encompass all of DOE’s contract awards and 

(2) DOE does not have a systematic method of identifying and disseminating 

lessons learned and best practices from past or current contract awards. 

Timeliness of 31 DOE Contract Awards, Fiscal Years 2002 through 2005 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-722.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Gene Aloise, 

202-512-3841, aloisee@gao.gov.
Page i GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4

Background 7

Delays Occurred in Most of the Contract Awards We Reviewed 9

Delays in Awarding Contracts Could Increase Costs to the 

Government and Industry and Affect Future Competition 15

Efforts to Address the Causes of Delays Are in Early Stages, but 

Concerns Remain about the Potential Effectiveness of DOE’s 

Planned Actions 17

Conclusions 25

Recommendations for Executive Action 26

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 26

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 29

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Energy 35

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 39

Table Table 1: Value of DOE Contracts Selected in the Nonprobability 

Sample, by Location 30

Figure Figure 1: DOE’s Timeliness in Awarding 31 Contracts from Fiscal 

Years 2002 through 2005 10

Abbreviations

DOE Department of Energy

EM Environmental Management

NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration

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Page 1 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

June 30, 2006 Letr

The Honorable Tom Davis

Chairman

Committee on Government Reform

House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Department of Energy (DOE), the largest civilian contracting agency in 

the federal government, spends over 90 percent of its annual budget on 

contracts to operate its laboratories, production facilities, and 

environmental restoration sites. In fiscal year 2005, DOE spent 

approximately $22.9 billion on contracts for mission-related activities such 

as maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, cleaning up 

radioactive and hazardous wastes, and conducting complex scientific 

research; and for mission-support activities such as purchase of computer 

equipment and maintenance and repair of buildings. Almost 90 percent of 

these fiscal year 2005 contracting dollars—or about 80 percent of DOE’s 

entire budget—were directed to DOE’s “facility management contractors” 

that carry out most of the department’s mission-related activities.

For over a decade, GAO, DOE’s Office of Inspector General, and others 

have criticized DOE’s contracting practices, particularly for inadequate 

management and oversight, and for failure to hold its contractors 

accountable for results. The poor performance of DOE’s contractors has 

led to schedule delays and cost increases on many of the department’s 

major projects. Since 1990, such problems have led us to designate DOE 

contract management—defined broadly to include both contract 

administration and management of major projects—as a high-risk area for 

fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.

DOE’s contracting activities are governed by federal law and regulations, 

including the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Department of Energy 

Acquisition Regulation. These regulations and related DOE guidance 

outline the steps that should be followed in planning and carrying out the 

process of awarding its contracts. Furthermore, federal law generally 

requires that federal agencies use full and open competition in selecting a 

contractor, as part of the process for ensuring the best value to the 

government. However, there are certain exceptions to this requirement, 

such as an urgent need to obtain the goods or services, when DOE may 

award a contract without full and open competition.
Page 2 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Awarding competitive contracts includes a series of required steps that 

generally involve planning the contract award process, soliciting proposals 

from private companies and/or public organizations, and evaluating those 

proposals to select the company that will provide the goods or services at 

the best value to the government. Planning the contract award process 

generally involves identifying needed goods or services and the best 

approach for obtaining them. DOE guidance generally requires a formal 

written plan for carrying out this process for contracts valued at $5 million 

or greater. The plan must describe the overall strategy for obtaining the 

goods or services, including the planned approach for soliciting and 

evaluating proposals. Key decisions outlined in the plan include whether to 

target the solicitation to small businesses and what factors to consider in 

evaluating proposals submitted by companies.

Although federal regulations do not specify how long the contract award 

process should take, the regulations state that the purpose of planning the 

contract award process is to ensure that the government obtains the 

needed goods or services in the most effective, economical, and timely 

manner. Therefore, written plans for carrying out the award process must 

include milestones for completing the steps in the process, such as when 

the agency plans to solicit and evaluate proposals and make the award. 

Developing and adhering to these schedules can help ensure that the 

department conducts the process efficiently and can help companies make 

informed business decisions regarding the allocation of their resources and 

whether to compete for a contract.

In addition to specifying how the contract award process should be carried 

out, the laws and regulations that govern contracting with the federal 

government are designed to ensure that federal contracts are awarded 

fairly. On occasion, companies that bid on government contracts may 

believe that a contract has been or is about to be awarded improperly. 

These companies may attempt to informally resolve concerns with the 

contracting officer, file a protest with the federal agency awarding the 

contract, or file a formal bid protest with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims 
Page 3 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

or GAO.1 In deciding bid protests, the essential issue is whether the agency 

making the award has complied with federal laws and regulations that 

govern contracting.

Several of DOE’s recent contract awards have taken much longer than 

anticipated and have been subject to bid protests. In this context, you 

asked us to review how DOE plans for and carries out its contract awards. 

This report discusses (1) the extent to which DOE adhered to its planned 

dates for awarding contracts and the factors contributing to any delays, (2) 

the impacts of any delays in awarding contracts, and (3) the extent to 

which DOE has taken steps to address delays in its contract award process.

To determine DOE’s timeliness in awarding its contracts and the factors 

contributing to delays, we analyzed file documents from a nonprobability 

sample of contracts valued at $5 million or greater that DOE awarded 

during fiscal years 2002 through 2005. To obtain this sample, we selected 

contracts for goods and services that were awarded by DOE’s three largest 

component organizations—the Offices of Environmental Management and 

Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—and 

from field locations with high levels of contracting activity. The contracts 

sampled from these field locations comprised about 73 percent of total 

contracting dollars for new awards of $5 million or greater during fiscal 

years 2002 through 2005. To determine whether the contract awards had 

been delayed, we compared the planned award date specified in DOE’s 

schedule for awarding the contract with the date the contract was actually 

awarded. Federal regulations stress the importance of timeliness in 

awarding contracts, but do not establish specific timeliness standards or 

measures. Therefore, we used adherence to the milestones established in 

the written plan as a consistent measure of timeliness and one indicator of 

how well the contract award process was being managed. To determine the 

overall length of time for a contract award, we generally compared the date 

the written plan for the contract award was approved with the date that the 

contract was awarded. For the contracts included in our sample for review, 

we also obtained and analyzed information on bid protests filed with GAO. 

1

During fiscal year 2005, there were more than 1,356 bid protests filed with GAO, compared 

with less than 70 with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. According to a DOE Associate 

General Counsel, DOE also has significantly fewer bid protests filed in the U.S. Court of 

Federal Claims than with GAO. The DOE official added that there had been less than 10 of 

these protests filed over the last decade. Furthermore, DOE neither lost any bid protest 

cases in this court during fiscal years 2002 through 2005, nor did the department take 

corrective action in response to any cases filed with the court.
Page 4 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

To determine the extent to which DOE has taken steps to address any 

delays, we interviewed officials at DOE headquarters and six of the field 

locations that were involved in contract awards. In addition, we reviewed 

agency policies and guidance on its contract award process, as well as 

documentation on any efforts to improve the process. A more detailed 

description of our scope and methodology is presented in appendix I. We 

performed our work between July 2005 and June 2006 in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief DOE awarded most of the contracts we reviewed months to years later 

than the planned award dates. In fiscal years 2002 through 2005, DOE 

awarded 131 contracts valued at $5 million or greater; the 31 of these 

contracts we reviewed were affiliated with DOE’s three largest component 

organizations and represented about 73 percent of the dollars awarded. 

Specifically, none of the 24 competitive contracts was awarded by the 

planned date specified in DOE’s schedule for carrying out the contract 

award process. DOE awarded one of these contracts less than 1 month 

after the planned award date but awarded the remaining 23 contracts 

between several weeks and 4-1/2 years after the planned award date. In 

contrast, of the 7 contracts DOE awarded without competition, 6 contracts 

were awarded on time or nearly so, with the remaining contract awarded 2 

months late. DOE encountered delays throughout the contract award 

process for various reasons. For example:

• DOE took over 4 years to successfully award a $1.6 billion contract for 

nuclear waste cleanup services at DOE’s Hanford site in Washington 

after revising and reissuing a solicitation in response to a bid protest.

• DOE was 4 months behind its scheduled award date for two contracts 

for the conceptual design of a waste processing facility at the Savannah 

River site. The delay occurred because the department decided to enter 

into discussions with companies after proposals were submitted, even 

though DOE had not allowed any time for this activity in its schedule for 

carrying out the contract award.

• DOE was 4 months late in awarding a contract to manage and operate 

the Berkeley National Laboratory because it took longer than expected 

to obtain approval of the draft solicitation from DOE headquarters 

officials.
Page 5 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

It is unclear the extent to which delays in the contracts that we reviewed 

could have been avoided, or were due to factors beyond DOE’s control. 

However, some delays were clearly avoidable, such as when DOE took 

corrective action in response to bid protests because the department failed 

to follow its contract award process.

Delays in awarding contracts could increase costs to both DOE and the 

companies that are competing for the work and could also affect the 

willingness of companies to compete for future DOE contracts. Because 

the department does not track its costs for awarding individual contracts, it 

was not feasible for us to quantify the impact of delays on DOE’s costs. 

However, DOE headquarters procurement and program officials 

acknowledge that there may be additional costs associated with contract 

awards that experience delays and added that companies competing for 

these contracts could face increased costs as the process takes longer than 

expected. Specifically, in addition to investing time and resources in 

developing proposals, once a company submits a proposal to DOE, the 

company is generally required to ensure that the key personnel identified in 

the proposal continue to be available until the decision is made and the 

contract awarded. For example, according to file documents for a contract 

to provide infrastructure services at DOE’s Paducah, Kentucky, site, several 

of the companies competing for that contract told DOE that—in addition to 

the high costs of preparing a proposal—there were costs associated with 

retaining key personnel during the year-long delay that occurred before 

DOE awarded the contract. Increased costs and the length of time it takes 

DOE to award a contract also have the potential to affect competition for 

future DOE work. Although DOE officials who oversee the contracting 

process told us that they have not yet seen a decline in the number of 

companies competing for contracts, they agree that this is a potential 

concern.

In July 2005, when we began our work, officials overseeing DOE’s contract 

award process generally were not taking steps to address delays in 

awarding those contracts. One of the main reasons that DOE was not 

addressing the delays was that DOE’s performance data measured only the 

final steps in the contract award process and indicated that most of the 

contracts were being awarded in a timely manner. In late 2005, partly in 

response to criticisms from GAO and others, DOE began to take steps to 

improve its contract award process. These efforts involved (1) an initiative 

with the Office of Management and Budget to address the GAO 

determination since 1990 that DOE’s contract management has been at high 

risk for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement; (2) a restructuring of 
Page 6 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

DOE’s Office of Environmental Management to increase the focus on 

planning and management of contract awards; and (3) specific steps by 

NNSA and DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management to 

implement improved measures of the timeliness of the contract award 

process. Although these efforts are constructive and helpful, we have two 

main concerns that could limit DOE’s effectiveness in improving the 

timeliness of contract awards. First, the efforts do not reflect a 

comprehensive approach within the department to improve the timeliness 

of contract awards. Various programs and organizations within DOE are 

initiating these efforts, and we found that some of DOE’s contracts were 

excluded from the improvements. Second, as DOE implements more 

comprehensive measures of timeliness and analyzes the resulting 

performance data to identify the causes of delays, DOE currently does not 

have a systematic way to develop and disseminate best practices or lessons 

learned, despite the fact that federal regulations require agencies to 

implement knowledge-sharing procedures. Instead, department officials 

who oversee contracting efforts said that best practices and lessons 

learned are sometimes shared informally during the contract award 

process or at conferences. However, officials who plan and carry out 

contract awards said that the information was sometimes not available to 

them or may have come too late in the award process to be beneficial.

To help ensure that DOE’s contract award process is efficient and effective 

and that DOE is obtaining the best value for the government, we are 

recommending that DOE take steps to (1) develop more accurate and 

comprehensive performance measures for the timeliness of its contract 

awards and (2) establish a consistent system for identifying and sharing 

lessons learned and best practices on contract awards.

DOE generally agreed with our recommendations and outlined steps that 

the department has taken or will take in response. However, DOE raised 

concerns about (1) using a nonprobability sample to draw conclusions 

about DOE’s contracting practices, (2) our description of contracts 

awarded later than planned as delayed, and (3) our statement that DOE’s 

performance measures for timeliness were incomplete. We believe our 

sampling methodology was appropriate because the 31 contracts in our 

nonprobability sample represented about 73 percent of the total dollars 

DOE awarded during the 4-year period for contracts valued at $5 million or 

greater. Furthermore, our report does not use the sample results to make 

overall statements about DOE’s contracting practices. Regarding our 

description of contracts awarded later than planned as delayed, federal 

regulations emphasize the importance of timeliness in awarding contracts, 
Page 7 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

and we believe that awarding contracts later than planned is accurately 

characterized as a delay. Regarding the completeness of DOE’s 

performance measures for timeliness in awarding contracts, we continue 

to believe that DOE’s performance measures could be improved by being 

applied to all contracts for which a written plan and schedule are required.

Background DOE has numerous sites and facilities around the country where the 

department carries out its missions, including developing, maintaining, and 

securing the nation’s nuclear weapons capability; cleaning up the nuclear 

and hazardous wastes resulting from more than 50 years of weapons 

production; and conducting basic energy and scientific research, such as 

mapping the human genome. DOE relies on contractors to operate its 

facilities and accomplish its missions. This mission work is carried out 

under the direction of NNSA and DOE’s program offices, including the 

Offices of Environmental Management and Science.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation provides the basic guidelines that all 

federal agencies must follow in planning for and carrying out the process 

for awarding contracts. DOE, like most federal agencies, has supplemental 

regulations that it has set forth in the Department of Energy Acquisition 

Regulation to recognize requirements unique to the department, such as 

maintaining nuclear safety and security. Furthermore, in the mid-1990s, 

DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management developed the 

DOE Acquisition Guide that provides further information on contract 

award planning activities, including meeting federal requirements for 

competition, establishing evaluation criteria, and selecting the appropriate 

contract type.

In planning and carrying out competition and award of contracts, there are 

three main phases, and each phase generally includes several steps.

• Planning. This phase involves identifying the mission need for the 

contract, alternatives for obtaining the goods or services, estimated 

costs, and any program or technical risks. Federal regulations state that 

the agency should use an integrated team approach—involving all 

personnel responsible for significant aspects of the contract award 

process—to developing the plan and associated milestone schedule. The 

plan should also identify the appropriate contract type for the work, 

considering the alternatives and risks. In addition, a selection official is 

designated, and an evaluation board is formed to carry out the contract 

award process.
Page 8 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

• Developing the solicitation. Generally, the evaluation board, with input 

from technical and other advisors, develops a statement of work for the 

contract and criteria that will be used to evaluate proposals submitted 

by companies. During this phase, DOE may also do market research to 

determine if sources capable of meeting the agency’s needs exist. 

Finally, DOE issues the request for proposals that describes the work to 

be done, provides instructions to companies on how and when to submit 

their proposals, and describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate 

the proposals and select a contractor.

• Evaluating proposals and awarding the contract. Once proposals are 

received, the evaluation board evaluates the proposals against the 

established criteria. Evaluation criteria may differ for each contract, but 

generally include factors such as a company’s proposed technical 

approach; past performance on DOE, other federal agency, and 

commercial contracts; the proposed cost; and the qualifications of the 

key personnel identified in the proposal. During this phase, DOE may 

determine that it is necessary to hold discussions with individual 

companies about issues raised during the evaluation of their proposals. 

Based on a written report of the evaluation board that outlines the 

strengths and weaknesses of each proposal, the selection official should 

select a proposal that represents the best value for the government. The 

DOE contracting officer, who has generally provided contracting 

support to the evaluation team, then awards the contract.2

The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 provides statutory authority for 

GAO to decide cases involving bid protests. GAO’s bid protest decisions 

address specific allegations raised by unsuccessful companies claiming 

that particular contracting actions were contrary to federal laws and 

regulations. A bid protest may be filed by an “interested party,” defined as 

an actual or prospective bidder or offeror with a direct economic interest in 

the contract. Unless the protest is dismissed at the outset because it is 

procedurally or substantively defective, such as if the protest was not filed 

in a timely manner, the contracting agency is required to file a report with 

GAO responding to the protest. GAO will consider the facts and legal issues 

raised and is required to resolve the protest not later than 100 days from the 

date the protest was filed, either by sustaining the protest and 

2

After the contract has been awarded, DOE notifies both the successful and unsuccessful 

companies and, upon request, conducts “debriefings” on how their proposals were 

evaluated.
Page 9 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

recommending that the agency take corrective action, or by denying or 

dismissing the protest.3

DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management and NNSA’s 

Office of Acquisition and Supply Management establish policies and 

guidance for awarding contracts according to federal and departmental 

regulations. Officials from DOE’s programs, such as NNSA and the Offices 

of Environmental Management and Science, usually manage the contract 

planning and award process since they are most knowledgeable about the 

work needed and are ultimately responsible for managing the work and 

overseeing the contracts. Other organizations within DOE work with the 

program officials to plan and carry out the contract award process by 

providing contracting, legal, and technical advice and assistance. DOE’s 

Offices of General Counsel and Procurement and Assistance Management 

review, evaluate, and approve key documents during the entire process, 

such as the initial plan for the contract award process and the request for 

proposals.

Delays Occurred in 

Most of the Contract 

Awards We Reviewed

Most of DOE’s 31 contract awards that we reviewed experienced delays 

when comparing the planned and actual award dates for the contracts. The 

24 contracts awarded with competition faced delays of months to years; of 

the 7 contracts awarded without competition, 6 were awarded on time or 

nearly so. Delays occurred throughout the contract award process due to 

factors such as time spent repeating steps of the process to resolve a 

company’s formal protest, or because of unanticipated complications that 

affected DOE’s ability to adhere to the planned schedule.

DOE Experienced Delays of 

Months to Years in 

Awarding Its Contracts

For the 31 contracts we reviewed, most were awarded months to years 

after the planned award date. To determine whether contract awards were 

delayed, we compared the planned award date with the date DOE actually 

made the award. None of the 24 competitive contracts we reviewed was 

awarded according to DOE’s planned schedule, and nearly all were delayed 

by months or years. Only 1 of these competitive contract awards was made 

within 1 month of the planned award date. The remaining awards 

3

Between fiscal years 2002 and 2005, a total of 5,397 bid protests were filed with GAO, or an 

average of about 1,300 per year. Of the cases resolved by a GAO decision on the merits, 

about 20 percent resulted in a sustained decision.
Page 10 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

experienced more lengthy delays of from 2 months to over 2 years. In 

contrast, delays were less prevalent among the noncompetitive contract 

awards included in our sample. Six of these 7 contracts were awarded on 

time or within 1 month of the planned award date. The other contract was 

awarded 2 months late.4

 (See fig. 1.)

Figure 1: DOE’s Timeliness in Awarding 31 Contracts from Fiscal Years 2002 

through 2005

Noncompetitive contracts were awarded in a more timely manner, in part, 

because the federal regulations for noncompetitive contract awards are 

different and involve fewer steps. Thus, DOE officials could shorten or 

4

While the sample of contract awards reviewed did not allow us to generalize to all of DOE’s 

contract awards, they represent about 73 percent of the department’s total contracting 

dollars for awards of $5 million or greater during fiscal years 2002 through 2005. Further 

information on our scope and methodology is presented in appendix I.

0 

1 

2 

3

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

Noncompetitive awards

Competitive awards

Over 2 years1 to 2 

years

6 months to 1 year 2 to 6 

months

1 to 2 

 months

Less than 

 1 month 

On time 

Number of contract awards

Source: GAO analysis of DOE contract files.

3 

7 

3 

1 

2 

3 

4 

24% 

7 

1 

Length of delay in contract award 
Page 11 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

eliminate parts of the process in which delays typically occurred on the 

competitively awarded contracts we reviewed. For example, for a 

noncompetitively awarded contract, DOE would not need to evaluate 

multiple proposals because it had already identified a company with the 

qualifications and experience necessary to perform the work. DOE 

generally awarded the seven contracts we reviewed without competition 

because of an urgent need to obtain the goods and services and to ensure 

that the contractors could start work quickly. This is consistent with one of 

the exceptions to the requirement for full and open competition allowed by 

federal regulations. Nevertheless, since federal regulations generally 

require that agencies use full and open competition, the contracts awarded 

competitively better reflect the timeliness of DOE’s overall contract award 

process.

The schedules for the contract awards we reviewed showed that DOE 

planned to take from about 1 month to up to 2 years to award its contracts. 

Variation in the length of the planned schedule may depend on several 

characteristics of the contract award process, such as whether or not the 

contract was awarded competitively or noncompetitively, the dollar value 

of the award, or the complexity of the work. DOE officials indicated that 

facility management contracts tend to be more complex and, therefore, can 

take longer and could be more prone to delay, but we found some facility 

management contract awards were less delayed than some smaller dollar 

value, more straightforward contract awards. For example, the $4.8 billion 

facility management contract to operate the Idaho National Laboratory 

took just over 1 year to award and was delayed about 4 months, while a $5 

million administrative support services contract at the Savannah River site 

took almost 2 years to award and was awarded 1-1/2 years later than the 

planned award date.

Delays Occurred Because 

DOE Had to Modify Its 

Approach after Beginning 

the Contract Award Process

Delays in awarding contracts occurred when DOE modified its approach 

after the start of the contract award process. DOE frequently had to modify 

its approach to take corrective action in response to bid protests, or 

because DOE took more time than planned to evaluate proposals, hold 

discussions with companies that had submitted proposals, or obtain 

headquarters approval for key documents.

Taking corrective action due to bid protests. One cause of delay for DOE’s 

contract awards was the time the department spent reworking portions of 
Page 12 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

the process in response to companies that filed bid protests with GAO.5

Companies generally filed protests because they believed that DOE had 

violated federal acquisition regulations in carrying out the contract award 

process, most typically in evaluating or soliciting proposals. Rework in 

response to a bid protest was initiated in one of two ways: (1) GAO found 

fundamental flaws in the contract award process, sustained the company’s 

protest, and recommended that DOE take corrective action or (2) DOE 

initiated corrective action after conducting an assessment of the validity of 

the company’s protest, without waiting for a formal GAO decision. In either 

case, rework can include canceling or revising the solicitation, reevaluating 

proposals, or accepting proposals from firms that were previously 

excluded from the competition.

Rework resulting from corrective action can significantly delay the 

contract award. For the 31 contracts we reviewed, 10 resulted in bid 

protests filed with GAO. Protests on 8 of these were denied or dismissed by 

GAO, or withdrawn by the protestor.6

 DOE agreed to take corrective action 

on the remaining 2, once as a result of a protest being sustained by GAO, 

and once before GAO issued a decision. Delays due to such corrective 

action added up to 2 years to the contract award process. For example, a 

contract worth $1.6 billion to clean up the River Corridor area at DOE’s 

Hanford, Washington, site was delayed more than 1-1/2 years while DOE 

took corrective action in response to a bid protest. GAO sustained a bid 

protest on the initial award because DOE failed to properly apply its 

criteria for evaluating the cost proposals. In response, DOE revised and 

reissued the solicitation, evaluated new proposals, and selected a new 

contractor about 2-1/2 years after the initial planned award date.7

 In 

another example, a NNSA contract award for administrative support 

services was delayed almost 2 years when NNSA took corrective action in 

5

During fiscal years 2002 through 2005, of DOE’s more than 5,000 contract awards, 39 were 

subject to bid protests filed with GAO. Of these, 24—or about 60 percent—were denied or 

dismissed by GAO or withdrawn by the company that filed the protest before GAO reached 

a decision. For the remaining 15 bid protests, DOE took corrective action, in response to a 

sustained decision in two cases and before GAO reached a decision in the other 13 cases.

6

For the 8 bid protests that did not result in corrective action, the bid protest process did not 

cause a delay in the date of the contract award. However, starting the work under the new 

contract may have been deferred until the bid protest was resolved.

7

As part of taking corrective action on this bid protest, DOE had to revise the statement of 

work and issue a new solicitation. This was necessary because the incumbent contractor 

had continued to perform cleanup work under the existing contract, leaving less work to be 

accomplished under the new contract.
Page 13 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

response to a bid protest. Corrective action involved revising and reissuing 

the solicitation. However, the NNSA evaluation board then had difficulties 

completing cost evaluations of the revised proposals, adding more time to 

the process, and finally awarded contracts to all three companies almost 2 

years later than the planned award date.

Evaluating proposals. DOE generally estimated between 1 and 6 months to 

review and evaluate proposals for its competitive contract awards. 

However, for the 24 competitively awarded contracts we reviewed, it took 

on average 5 months longer than planned for this part of the process, 

accounting for over half of the overall delay in carrying out the process. For 

example, DOE was planning to award multiple contracts to provide 

environmental remediation and deactivation of facilities across the DOE 

complex. DOE estimated that it would receive about 20 proposals and 

allowed about 3 months for evaluating the proposals and selecting the 

contractors. The department actually received more than 100 proposals 

and was delayed over 9 months, in part, due to the amount of additional 

time required to review the larger than expected number of proposals. In 

another example, the Savannah River Operations Office allowed about 8 

weeks to evaluate proposals for an administrative support services 

contract at the site. However, the evaluation board encountered several 

difficulties during the evaluation process, including concerns about the 

wide range of the cost estimates in the proposals. These concerns 

necessitated a more detailed cost evaluation, resulting in the evaluation 

taking 5 months longer than planned.8

Holding discussions with companies submitting proposals. For eight of 

the contracts we reviewed, DOE had to modify its approach to holding 

discussions. In some cases, the planned schedule did not include any time 

for discussions and, in other cases, the time DOE took to discuss proposals 

with the companies submitting them exceeded the time estimated in the 

plan. For these contracts, actual time to discuss proposals exceeded the 

planned time by an average of 3 months. For example, two contracts for 

conceptual design of a waste processing facility at the Savannah River site 

were awarded 4 months late because DOE initially intended to make the 

contract awards without discussions and, therefore, did not plan time in 

the original schedule for this part of the process. However, after the 

8

In addition, there were three bid protests filed with GAO during this contract award 

process, with DOE taking corrective action based on the first two protests. Overall, the final 

contract award was delayed 1-1/2 years.
Page 14 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

contracting process was under way, the department decided it was 

necessary to conduct discussions on the proposals because none of the 

companies had provided all of the cost and pricing data necessary to fully 

evaluate the proposals. Similarly, a contract for medical services for the 

Hanford site was delayed more than 5 months, in part because the 

department held discussions with companies concerning their cost 

proposals and technical approach but did not plan for this activity in the 

schedule.

Obtaining headquarters approval of key documents. Awarding of DOE 

contracts was also delayed due to obtaining headquarters approval of key 

documents. In five contract awards we reviewed,9

 delays in obtaining the 

required review and approval from DOE headquarters officials caused an 

average 5-month delay in contract award. For example, for a contract to 

manage and operate DOE’s Berkeley National Laboratory, DOE allowed 1 

month for headquarters review and approval of the draft solicitation. 

However, headquarters review and approval took 5 months, partly due to 

the complexities of competing a contract that had been in place for 

decades. As a result, the contract award was 4 months late. In another 

example, the Oak Ridge Operations Office allowed 1 month for 

headquarters review and approval of a solicitation for a contract for 

medical isotope production. However, headquarters review and 

concurrence took about 1 year longer than anticipated because of 

additional requests for information from the Congress on DOE’s strategy 

for going forward with the work under this contract. Overall, the contract 

award was delayed nearly 2 years due to this lengthy review and the need 

for extensive discussions during the evaluation phase with companies that 

had submitted proposals.

It is unclear the extent to which these delays in awarding contracts were 

avoidable. At times, delays in the process appeared to be outside DOE’s 

control and, therefore, more difficult to anticipate and manage, such as 

difficulty obtaining funding or to address concerns raised by the Congress 

or other stakeholders. For example, a $562 million contract for facilities 

and services to stabilize the department’s depleted uranium hexafluoride 

inventory at Portsmouth and Paducah was delayed after the Office of 

Management and Budget, late in the process, raised concerns about the 

need to build facilities at both locations. Dealing with this issue contributed 

9

Lack of consistent file documentation on headquarters review and approval dates made it 

difficult to determine exactly how many contract awards were delayed for this reason.
Page 15 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

to the delay of the contract award.10 While external factors such as this can 

impact the planned schedule, some delays are clearly avoidable, such as 

when DOE had to take corrective action in response to bid protests 

because the department failed to follow its contract award process. In such 

cases, better management and oversight of the contract award process 

would provide opportunities for improvement. According to the Director of 

DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management, DOE cannot 

plan for all possible events when developing a schedule for a contract 

award process and must respond to changing circumstances and 

incorporate additional steps into the award process when necessary.

Delays in Awarding 

Contracts Could 

Increase Costs to the 

Government and 

Industry and Affect 

Future Competition

Delays in awarding contracts could increase costs both to DOE and the 

companies that are competing for the potential contracts and could also 

affect whether companies are willing to compete for DOE contracts in the 

future. Specifically, awarding a contract months or years after the date 

anticipated in the contract award schedule could increase the overall costs 

to the government. DOE staff involved in a contract award may include 

officials from the program offices, such as the Offices of Environmental 

Management or Science; contracting and legal specialists; and nuclear 

safety and regulatory experts. Both salary and travel costs associated with 

keeping these integrated teams together for the duration of the contract 

award process can be significant. However, these costs cannot be readily 

quantified since the department does not accumulate or track the costs 

associated with individual contract awards. Nevertheless, DOE officials 

acknowledge that there may be additional costs associated with contract 

awards that are delayed. The added time and resources spent on delayed 

contract awards may impact the department’s ability to meet its 

management and oversight responsibilities, including planning for and 

carrying out other contract awards.

According to DOE officials, prolonged delays in awarding contracts could 

also increase costs for companies that are submitting proposals. 

Companies competing for DOE contracts invest considerable time and 

resources in developing their proposals. However, since companies 

generally consider their proposal costs to be proprietary information, we 

could not quantify those costs. For DOE’s contracts, once companies 

10Congress eventually passed legislation that became effective on August 2, 2002, requiring 

DOE to award the contract for facilities at both locations within 30 days. See Pub. L. No. 

107-206, 116 Stat. 820, § 502 (2002). The contract was awarded on August 29, 2002.
Page 16 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

submit proposals, DOE generally requires the companies to ensure that key 

personnel identified in the proposals continue to be available until the 

award decision has been made. If a contract award is delayed, companies 

may have to keep key personnel available for months or even years, which 

could increase their costs and/or represent a possible lost opportunity to 

the companies since those key personnel may not be available for other 

work. For example, our review of file documents found that several small 

businesses competing for a contract to provide infrastructure services at 

DOE’s Paducah, Kentucky, site expressed frustration over the costs of 

keeping key personnel available while DOE took nearly 1 year after the 

planned award date to complete the process and award the contract.

The length of time and increased costs to carry out a contract award may 

also discourage some companies from competing for DOE work, thus 

potentially affecting the extent of competition in the future. Ensuring 

adequate competition for contracts can help obtain the best value for the 

government. According to DOE officials who oversee the contracting 

process, they have not seen a decline in the number of companies willing to 

compete for DOE’s contracts, but the officials agree that this is a potential 

concern, and it has been a concern in the past. For example, a January 2001 

report that analyzed the contractor base for DOE’s environmental cleanup 

work stated that the number of companies that were both willing and able 

to compete for major remediation contracts had declined over the past 

several years.11 The report concluded, among other things, that promoting 

competition among a large number of qualified companies was crucial to 

getting the best value for the government and accomplishing the 

environmental cleanup mission. Therefore, anything that could reduce the 

pool of potential companies competing for DOE’s work, such as an 

inefficient contract award process, would not be in the department’s best 

interest of fostering full and open competition for its work.

11U.S. Department of Energy, Contract Reform and Privatization Project Office, Analysis of 

the DOE Contractor Base: Readiness, Willingness, Profitability and Trends—A Focus on 

the Environmental Management Program (Washington, D.C.: January 2001).
Page 17 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Efforts to Address the 

Causes of Delays Are in 

Early Stages, but 

Concerns Remain 

about the Potential 

Effectiveness of DOE’s 

Planned Actions

When we began our review in July 2005, DOE officials generally were not 

addressing delays in awarding contracts because DOE’s data was showing 

that its contracts were being awarded in a timely manner. However, since 

late 2005, DOE has been implementing three main efforts to improve its 

contracting, partly in response to criticism by GAO and others. These 

efforts include (1) an initiative to address the DOE contracting weaknesses 

that led GAO to designate the area as high risk for fraud, waste, abuse, or 

mismanagement; (2) a plan to restructure DOE’s Office of Environmental 

Management to focus more attention on the contract award process; and 

(3) steps by NNSA and DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance 

Management to improve performance measures on the timeliness of 

contract awards. While these improvement efforts appear to be 

constructive and may also help to address delays in awarding contracts, we 

have two remaining concerns related to the timeliness of DOE’s contract 

awards. First, the efforts do not reflect a comprehensive approach within 

the department to improve the timeliness of contract awards. Second, even 

if DOE uses improved performance data to identify the causes of delays in 

awarding its contracts, the department does not have a systematic method 

to develop and disseminate best practices and lessons learned.

DOE Was Not Addressing 

Delays Because Incomplete 

Performance Data Indicated 

Contracts Were Awarded in 

a Timely Manner

When we began our work in July 2005, DOE officials generally were not 

taking steps to address the causes of delays in awarding contracts. One of 

the main reasons for this was that DOE’s performance data was generally 

showing its contracts were being awarded in a timely manner. Although our 

analysis uncovered delays in most of the 31 contract awards valued at $5 

million or greater from fiscal years 2002 through 2005 that we reviewed, 

DOE’s performance data for the same period showed that most of its 

contract awards were timely. For example, the data for fiscal years 2003 

and 2004 showed that, respectively, 88 and 86 percent of the contract 

awards were timely. According to DOE’s performance measures, a timely 

award meant that DOE had awarded the contracts within 150 days after 

receiving proposals from companies. An official from the Office of 

Procurement and Assistance Management who manages the performance 
Page 18 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

data said that the department used 150 days as a timeliness standard 

because it represented a realistic yet challenging time frame for awarding 

the contracts.12

However, DOE’s performance data did not provide a complete picture of 

the department’s timeliness in awarding its contracts for two reasons. First, 

the data for those years did not include all of the contract award process. 

Instead, the performance data DOE used measured only the timeliness in 

carrying out the final stage of the process (the evaluation phase), from the 

point at which DOE received the proposals through contract award. 

Consequently, the performance data excluded the earlier steps of the 

process, from planning the contract award through the process of soliciting 

proposals from interested companies. For the 24 competitively awarded 

contracts valued at $5 million or greater we reviewed, the excluded steps 

accounted for over half of the total time that DOE typically spent awarding 

its contracts. As a result, some of DOE’s contract awards may appear 

timely, when, in fact, DOE awarded the contracts weeks or months after 

the planned award date. For example, in fiscal year 2003, DOE awarded a 

contract for laundry services at the Hanford site in Washington about 2 

months after its planned award date. However, DOE considered the 

contract award to have been timely because the department was able to 

award the contract within 150 days of receiving proposals.

Officials from the Office of Procurement and Assistance Management said 

DOE’s timeliness data are intended to measure the performance of 

contracting staff. Therefore, the officials said that the timeliness measure 

includes only the evaluation phase of the contract award process because 

that is the aspect of the process that would more likely be under the direct 

control of the contracting staff. Prior to the evaluation phase, officials said 

that contracting staff generally rely on program staff to develop key 

information, such as a description of the work to be carried out under the 

contract. Furthermore, according to DOE’s guidance, program office staff 

are generally responsible for planning the contract award process. 

However, we found that DOE’s contracting staff were generally involved 

throughout the entire contract award process as part of an integrated team 

12DOE’s performance data for fiscal years 2003 through 2005 included contracts valued at 

$100,000 or greater that DOE had awarded through a competitive process. The fiscal year 

2002 data included competitive contracts with values between $1 million and $25 million. 

The data from the 4-year period did not include the department’s facility management 

contracts.
Page 19 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

approach. Furthermore, it is unclear to what extent contracting staff have 

direct control over any phase of the process.

Second, DOE’s performance data were incomplete because data on DOE’s 

facility management contracts were excluded. For example, in fiscal year 

2005, DOE competitively awarded seven facility management contracts 

valued at a total of about $10.4 billion. However, DOE excluded the data on 

these facility management contracts from its performance measures for 

timeliness. DOE officials from the Office of Procurement and Assistance 

Management said they excluded the facility management contracts from 

the department’s performance data because those contracts are 

particularly complicated to award. Unlike the contracts included in the 

performance measures for timeliness, the department could not determine 

an appropriate timeliness standard for the facility management contracts. 

As a result of excluding the facility management contracts, the 

performance data for fiscal year 2005 did not reflect the department’s 

timeliness in awarding about 97 percent of the nearly $11 billion in 

contracts that the department awarded that year.

In contrast to DOE’s approach, we measured the department’s timeliness in 

awarding its contracts by comparing the planned award dates with the 

dates DOE actually awarded the contracts. We used the planned award 

date as the standard for determining whether contracts were awarded in a 

timely manner, rather than comparing the time it took DOE to award the 

contract after proposals were received with a fixed standard, such as 150 

days. A fixed standard is arbitrary because the actual time needed to carry 

out a contract award process can differ greatly for legitimate reasons, 

depending on the circumstances of each individual contract award. 

Furthermore, in doing so, we included the facility management contracts 

because those contracts can represent a significant portion of the total 

value of DOE’s contract awards.

DOE Recently Began Three 

Main Efforts to Improve Its 

Process for Awarding 

Contracts

Since late 2005, DOE has initiated three new efforts to improve its 

contracting processes. DOE is implementing these actions as part of its 

continuing efforts to improve its contracting processes and, in part, 

because of long-standing criticisms by GAO and others. Since 1990, GAO 

has designated DOE’s contract management, including project 

management, as an area at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse, and 

mismanagement. Our reviews have uncovered weaknesses in DOE’s 

management and oversight of its contracts which, in some cases, have 

undermined DOE’s ability to carry out its missions or dramatically 
Page 20 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

increased its costs.13 More recently, criticisms have included the frequency 

of delays in awarding contracts and the need for reforms. For example, in 

congressional testimony in November 2005 and March 2006, the Assistant 

Secretary for Environmental Management cited the need for improvements 

in the department’s contract award practices. Furthermore, conferences on 

DOE environmental cleanup issues held in February and October 2005 and 

attended by DOE and contractor officials included presentations calling for 

a reevaluation of DOE’s contract award process.

DOE’s recent efforts to improve its contracting include the following:

• Initiative to address DOE’s high-risk contracting practices. In 

November 2005, DOE drafted a plan aimed at improving the 

department’s contract and project management, including management 

of the contract award process. DOE developed the plan in response to 

an effort by the Office of Management and Budget that requires agencies 

to address areas identified by GAO as high risk for fraud, waste, abuse, 

or mismanagement. Actions included in the plan to improve the contract 

award process include conducting better oversight of the planning 

process, maximizing competition for contracts, and ensuring that 

contracts allow DOE to properly hold contractors accountable for their 

performance. To date, DOE has developed performance measures and 

targets for the focus areas in its action plan, as well as target dates for 

implementing the plan. As part of this initiative, in February 2006, DOE 

began to increase the frequency of training for new evaluation boards 

and selection officials and to provide this training at the beginning of the 

planning process. Although this plan does not specifically address the 

timeliness of contract awards, the overall effort to improve contracting 

and project management could help identify and address underlying 

causes for delays in awarding contracts.

• Initiative to restructure DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. 

Also in late 2005, the Assistant Secretary for Environmental 

13For additional information see GAO, Contract Reform: DOE Has Made Progress, but 

Actions Needed to Ensure Initiatives Have Improved Results, GAO-02-798 (Washington, 

D.C.: Sept. 13, 2002); GAO, Department of Energy: Further Actions Are Needed to 

Strengthen Contract Management for Major Projects, GAO-05-123 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 

18, 2005); GAO, Nuclear Waste: Absence of Key Management Reforms on Hanford’s 

Cleanup Project Adds to Challenges of Achieving Cost and Schedule Goals, GAO-04-611

(Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2004); and GAO, Hanford Waste Treatment Plant: Contractor 

and DOE Management Problems Have Led to Higher Costs, Construction Delays, and 

Safety Concerns, GAO-06-602T (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 6, 2006).
Page 21 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Management announced plans to restructure the headquarters-based 

administrative functions within his program office. According to 

officials in the Office of Environmental Management, the reorganization 

is aimed, in part, at improving contract and project management by 

bringing these functions together under a new Deputy Assistant 

Secretary for Acquisition and Project Management. As the 

reorganization is implemented, the Office of Environmental 

Management, at the request of a congressional subcommittee, has also 

commissioned the National Academy of Public Administration to 

undertake a general management review of the program, including 

reviewing the program office’s policies and processes for awarding 

contracts and providing advice on improving their effectiveness. As the 

study progresses, DOE will receive interim reports and 

recommendations on how to implement the reorganization and increase 

its effectiveness, which may also result in improving the timeliness of 

contract awards.

• Initiative to improve performance data on contract timeliness. NNSA 

and DOE are implementing separate efforts to help them track contract 

awards against the planned dates for carrying out the process. NNSA’s 

effort is focused on a recently implemented data system that will help its 

contracting staff track ongoing contract awards against a detailed 

schedule of milestones. The requirement to input a detailed milestone 

schedule at the beginning of the contract award process applies to all of 

NNSA’s contracts, regardless of their dollar value. As staff carry out the 

process, the system will record the dates on which key steps were 

completed and document any delays from the schedule. The system also 

allows the contracting officials to generate reports on the status of 

ongoing contract awards, as well as analyze data on existing contract 

awards for evidence of systemic delays or other problems. As of April 

2006, the data system was operational, and NNSA contracting officials 

have started using this milestone information to manage ongoing 

contract awards.

Similarly, in March 2006, DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance 

Management began implementing plans to track the timeliness of DOE’s 

facility management or other high-visibility contracts against a detailed 

milestone schedule. According to the Director of the Office of 

Procurement and Assistance Management, representatives from his 

office, as well as other department officials responsible for awarding 

facility management contracts, will work to develop a realistic, but 

challenging, milestone schedule for carrying out the award process. 
Page 22 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

According to the Director, revised DOE guidance will recommend that 

planning for a new facility management contract should begin no later 

than 2 years prior to the expiration of an existing contract. Once the 

milestone schedule has been established, his office will then track the 

contract award process to compare planned and actual key dates and 

provide monthly updates to the Deputy Secretary. As of April 2006, DOE 

had established schedules for the current and upcoming facility 

management contract awards, began monitoring the progress against 

those schedules, and began submitting monthly status reports to the 

Deputy Secretary.

DOE’s efforts to improve its contracting are generally in the early stages of 

being planned or implemented, and not all of the efforts specifically 

address the timeliness of contract awards. Nevertheless, we believe these 

initiatives are a constructive step towards addressing long-standing 

weaknesses in the department’s contracting and improving its contract 

awards. As the department addresses the weaknesses and takes steps to 

improve its contracting, improved efficiency and effectiveness could also 

result in fewer delays in awarding contracts. However, as discussed below, 

we are concerned that the efforts may fall short in two main respects, 

which could limit the department’s effectiveness in improving the 

timeliness of contract awards.

Lack of a Comprehensive 

Approach to Improvement 

Efforts and Inconsistent 

Practices for 

Communicating Lessons 

Learned May Limit the 

Effectiveness of DOE’s 

Efforts

Standards for a well-functioning contract award process come from federal 

acquisition regulations and GAO’s framework for assessing the process at 

federal agencies. The framework integrates the views of federal 

government and industry experts on the characteristics and practices of a 

well-functioning contract award and management process, and it draws 

upon decades of experience within GAO in analyzing contracts and 

contracting organizations.14 Among the standards for a well-functioning 

contract award process set forth by the framework and regulations are that 

federal agencies should use knowledge from prior contract awards to 

assess the effectiveness of the contracting process and, in the interest of 

continuous improvement, have a systematic means for instituting best 

practices and lessons learned. DOE’s improvement initiatives, as they apply 

to the timeliness of contract awards, appear to fall short in both respects.

14GAO, Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function at Federal Agencies, GAO-05-

218G (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2005).
Page 23 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

First, DOE has not ensured that the efforts to develop better data on the 

timeliness of contract awards will include all of the department’s contract 

awards that require a written plan and schedule. While DOE and NNSA’s 

efforts to develop better timeliness data will include all of the department’s 

facility management contracts, as well as NNSA’s other contract awards, 

the rest of DOE’s contracts may not be included. This could be a 

considerable portion of DOE’s contracts valued at $5 million or greater. For 

example, of the contracts that the department awarded in fiscal years 2002 

through 2005, nearly one-quarter of the total contract value, or $3.9 billion, 

may not have been included in DOE’s improvement efforts. These contracts 

may be excluded because they were neither facility management contracts, 

other DOE high-visibility contracts, nor contracts awarded by NNSA. The 

Director of DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management said 

that the tracking against milestone schedules includes only contracts that 

represent significant risk or are critical to carrying out DOE’s programs or 

missions. For example, the contracts that are currently being tracked 

include facility management contracts, other large cleanup contracts, and 

contracts that may also be of particular interest to headquarters, such as 

those for guard services. The Director added that it is not the intent of this 

effort to monitor the progress of all ongoing contract awards of $5 million 

or greater, and that he would expect contracting officers in the field 

locations to be accountable for contracts within their approval authority. 

Nevertheless, we believe that efforts to develop better timeliness data 

should include all contracts valued at $5 million or greater because DOE 

guidance generally requires written plans and schedules for these 

contracts.

Second, the department has neither had a systematic approach for 

instituting best practices or lessons learned in its contract award process, 

nor is it clear that the department’s efforts will result in a more systematic 

approach in the future. As DOE develops better data on the timeliness of its 

contract awards and analyzes the data to identify and address systemic 

problems or underlying causes of delays, the department will be developing 

useful information that could help ensure that future contract awards 

benefit from the best practices or lessons learned. Moreover, federal 

regulations require agencies to have a process for ensuring that lessons 

learned are developed and used in planning future contract awards.15

15FAR Part 7.103(r) requires agency heads to implement processes for ensuring that 

knowledge gained from prior acquisitions is used to further refine requirements and 

acquisition strategies for future contract awards.
Page 24 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Based on federal regulations and GAO’s framework, standards for a wellfunctioning contract award process would include a systematic approach 

for identifying and communicating lessons learned and best practices. Such 

an approach would include activities such as routinely evaluating 

performance data across a broad range of contracts to identify the extent 

to which the contract award process went well or encountered problems. 

In doing so, DOE would then look for trends or systemic problems and 

investigate the underlying causes. A systematic approach would also 

include a mechanism to ensure this information is readily available, in 

order to help officials who plan and carry out contract awards do so more 

efficiently.

We did find some examples in which best practices and lessons learned 

were identified and in some cases shared within the department, but we did 

not find a systematic approach for doing so. For example, in a recent DOE 

evaluation of the problems that occurred in awarding contracts for 

environmental cleanup and infrastructure services at its facilities in 

Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, DOE’s review confirmed that 

poor planning and management of the process caused delays of 6 months 

to 1 year in awarding the contracts. Some of the factors mentioned were 

lack of timely management direction in key areas, a lengthy headquarters 

review and approval process, and unrealistic schedules for the awards. 

However, DOE concluded that the factors leading to the delays were not 

typical for DOE’s contracts and did not represent a systemic problem. 

Therefore, DOE did not communicate the information as a systemic 

problem. In contrast, our analysis of 31 contracts valued at $5 million or 

greater indicated that these types of causes for delays were commonplace.

In addition, best practices or lessons learned have been communicated at 

training sessions and presentations to staff carrying out contract awards, 

such as those offered by DOE’s Office of General Counsel. According to the 

DOE attorney who has led a number of them, the sessions are generally 

aimed at helping staff carry out the contract award process effectively and 

in accordance with federal regulations and DOE guidance. This may 

increase the department’s ability to avoid successful bid protests. Best 

practices or lessons learned have also been shared at annual procurement 

directors’ conferences held for officials who oversee the contract award 

process, with the most recent conference in October 2005 covering topics 

such as proper documentation of decisions made during the contract 

award process.
Page 25 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

However, several DOE officials that were responsible for contract awards 

said that these best practices or lessons learned were not consistently 

available or may have come too late in the planning for the contract award 

to be very beneficial. The officials added that there was no centralized 

source within DOE for best practices, but they could obtain lessons learned 

by contacting others within the department who had recently awarded 

contracts. For example, an official from the Office of Environmental 

Management said that, in planning the contract award process for DOE’s 

Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina, she traveled to DOE’s 

offices in Idaho Falls to meet with officials there who had just awarded 

contracts for environmental cleanup at the site, and management and 

operation of the Idaho National Laboratory. While she said the meetings 

were beneficial and she obtained lessons learned documents, she saw this 

process as the only way to obtain best practices or lessons learned from 

those contract awards. As another example, this same DOE official 

conducted a recent contract award process, and said she would have 

benefited from early training on how to properly document decisions made 

while evaluating the proposals that were submitted. She added that the 

training was not made readily available, and it was not mandatory. After 

submitting draft documents for headquarters review, she eventually 

received helpful information on how to improve the documentation, but 

this would have been more beneficial earlier in the process.

Conclusions DOE relies on contractors to carry out its environmental cleanup, scientific 

research, nuclear weapons management, and other missions vital to 

national health, safety, and security. Our analysis of the contracts we 

reviewed showed that DOE experienced delays in awarding many of these 

contracts to carry out its critical missions. It is unclear the extent to which 

these delays may have been avoidable with better oversight or 

management, but at least some of the delays were avoidable, such as when 

DOE had to rework parts of the contract award process to correct errors. 

While DOE eventually awarded these contracts, a contract award process 

that takes too long runs the risk of undermining the department’s efforts to 

obtain needed goods or services at the best value for the government. As 

DOE goes forward with its efforts to improve its contract award process, it 

will be important to ensure that performance measures address the 

timeliness of all of the department’s contract awards that require written 

plans and schedules, and that lessons learned and best practices are 

consistently shared with DOE staff that will plan for and carry out future 

contract awards. Improving the department’s performance in awarding 
Page 26 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

contracts is an important part of ensuring that DOE’s contracts provide the 

best value to the government.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

To help ensure that DOE’s contract award process for contracts that 

require a written plan and schedule is efficient and effective and that DOE 

is obtaining the best value for the government, we recommend that the 

Secretary of Energy take the following two actions:

• Ensure that performance measures for the timeliness of the 

department’s contract awards include the entire contract award process 

from planning to contract award and include all of the department’s 

contracts that require a written plan and schedule.

• Establish a more systematic way of identifying lessons learned from 

past and current contract awards and sharing those lessons and best 

practices with the staff involved in planning and managing the 

department’s efforts to award its contracts.

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of the report to DOE for review and comment. In 

written comments, the Director of the Office of Management generally 

agreed with our recommendations, but questioned whether we intended 

the recommendations to apply to all of the department’s contracts. We 

modified the wording to clarify that our recommendations apply only to 

those contracts that require a written plan and schedule. In addition, DOE 

raised concerns about our nonprobability sample, our characterization of 

contract awards as delayed, and our view that DOE’s existing performance 

measures were incomplete.

Regarding our sampling methodology, DOE said that the results of our 

nonprobability sample should not be used to reach overall conclusions 

about DOE’s contracting practices because the 31 contracts we reviewed 

represented less than 1 percent of the 5,000 contracts DOE awarded during 

fiscal years 2002 through 2005 and were not representative of the entire 

group of contracts. However, we believe DOE has mischaracterized our 

scope and methodology. First, we did not derive the sample of 31 contracts 

from the 5,000 total contracts that DOE awarded during the period. Instead, 

we focused our efforts on the 131 contracts awarded by DOE that were 

valued at $5 million or greater because such contracts generally required a 

written plan, including estimated dates. The 31 contracts we reviewed 
Page 27 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

represented about 73 percent of the total dollar value of those 131 contract 

awards valued at $5 million or greater during the period and about 24 

percent of the total number of these larger contract awards. Furthermore, 

our report clearly states that the results of a nonprobability sample cannot 

be used to make inferences about a population, and we did not draw 

conclusions about DOE’s overall contracting processes based on the 

sample results.

DOE also took exception to our characterization of contract awards as 

delayed and our use of the department’s originally planned award date as 

an indication of timeliness. DOE said that the milestone schedule 

developed in the written plan is an internal planning tool that may change 

over time, and the department cannot factor in a schedule contingency for 

every possible event. However, as we reported, federal regulations state 

that the purpose of planning the contract award process is to ensure that 

the government obtains the needed goods and services in the most 

effective, economical, and timely manner. The regulations stress the 

importance of timeliness in awarding contracts and require that written 

plans for carrying out the contract award process include milestones for 

completing the steps in the process. Adherence to the milestones 

established in the written plan provides a consistent measure of timeliness 

and is one indicator of how well the contract award process is being 

managed. In addition, our report clearly states that some of the contracts 

DOE awarded later than planned were subject to external events and 

complications beyond DOE’s immediate control and recognizes that DOE’s 

milestone schedule cannot anticipate all possible events. Even so, we 

continue to believe that better management and oversight of the contract 

award process, including tracking actual against planned dates in the 

milestone schedule, could have prevented lengthy delays in awarding some 

of the contracts we reviewed.

In an attachment to its letter, DOE also disagreed with our conclusions that 

the department’s performance measures for timeliness in awarding 

contracts were incomplete and, as a result, the department was not 

addressing delays in awarding contracts. As we reported, DOE has stated 

that its timeliness measures were intended to evaluate the performance of 

contracting staff and thus included only the parts of the contract award 

process under their direct control. DOE also said the department had been 

addressing delays in awarding contracts through its lessons learned 

process. We continue to believe that DOE’s performance measures for 

timeliness in awarding contracts could be improved by being more 

comprehensive. DOE’s performance measures included only the evaluation 
Page 28 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

phase of the contract award process and excluded the facility management 

contracts, which represent a significant percentage of DOE’s overall 

contracting dollars. We also believe that DOE was generally not addressing 

these delays before our review began. The three initiatives DOE started in 

late 2005—to address GAO’s high-risk designation for DOE’s contract 

management, to restructure the Office of Environmental Management, and 

to improve performance data on contract timeliness—were the main 

efforts the department identified as steps to address delays in awarding 

contracts.

DOE also provided technical comments in an attachment to the letter, 

which we have incorporated and summarized as appropriate. DOE’s 

comments on our draft report are included in appendix II.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the Secretary 

of Energy. We will also make copies available to others on request. In 

addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions on this report, please contact me at 

(202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are 

listed in appendix III.

Sincerely yours,

Gene Aloise

Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Page 29 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology AAppenednxidexiIs

In response to a congressional request, we determined (1) the extent to 

which the Department of Energy (DOE) adhered to its planned dates for 

awarding contracts and the factors contributing to any delays, (2) the 

impacts of any delays in awarding contracts, and (3) the extent to which 

DOE has taken steps to address delays in its contract award process. To 

conduct our work, we analyzed contracts valued at $5 million or greater 

from multiple DOE locations and interviewed contracting and program 

officials at DOE headquarters and field locations. We also reviewed federal 

laws and regulations on contracting, agency policies and guidance, GAO 

guidance on bid protests, and standards for assessing DOE’s management 

and oversight of its contract award process.

To determine the extent to which DOE adhered to its planned dates for 

awarding contracts, we analyzed 31 contracts from seven DOE locations 

that (1) were affiliated with the department’s three largest component 

organizations—the Office of Environmental Management, Office of 

Science, and the National Nuclear Security Administration—and (2) had 

awarded a large share of the department’s contracts valued at $5 million or 

greater in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, including facility management 

contracts.1

 We focused on the three largest component organizations 

because they comprised over 80 percent of DOE’s annual budget and 

because they were affiliated with about two-thirds of the locations 

departmentwide that had awarded contracts in the four fiscal years we 

reviewed. We considered the four most recent fiscal years, 2002 through 

2005, in the scope of our study to help ensure that the results reflected 

DOE’s recent activity, while increasing the number of contracts that could 

potentially be selected for analysis.

In fiscal years 2002 through 2005, the department awarded over 130 

contracts valued at $5 million or greater, for a total value of about $16.3 

1

Because our study focused on DOE’s process for awarding contracts, we only looked at 

new contracts awarded during the four fiscal years through a competitive or noncompetitive 

process. Our study did not include contracts awarded prior to fiscal year 2002 that the 

department renewed or extended in fiscal years 2002 through 2005 beyond the initial period 

of performance. We did not include such contracts because extending an existing contract 

eliminates the opportunity for a competitive or noncompetitive award process to occur.

In addition, 3 of the 31 contracts in our sample actually represent multiple contract awards 

resulting from a single contract award process. For example, a contract award process 

carried out by DOE’s Savannah River location resulted in simultaneous award of 22 

contracts for environmental cleanup services. In defining our sample, we represented such 

awards as a single contract in order to avoid potentially overstating the extent to which the 

contracts we reviewed had experienced delays. 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 30 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

billion. From seven DOE locations, we selected a nonprobability sample of 

31 of these contracts, accounting for about $11.9 billion, or 73 percent, of 

the $16.3 billion (see table 1).2

 Contracts in our sample ranged in value 

from about $5.5 million to $4.8 billion, and they included 7 of the 8 facility 

management contracts that the department competitively awarded during 

the four fiscal years we studied.3

 In selecting our sample, we analyzed DOE 

contract award data to identify locations that had awarded a large share of 

the department’s contracts in fiscal years 2002 through 2005. To verify the 

completeness and accuracy of contract award data, we interviewed 

knowledgeable DOE officials at the locations we visited (six of the seven 

field locations from which we selected contracts). On the basis of our 

checks, we determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for 

identifying DOE locations with a large share of contracts.

Table 1: Value of DOE Contracts Selected in the Nonprobability Sample, by Location

2

Results from nonprobability samples cannot be used to make inferences about a 

population. This is because, in a nonprobability sample, some elements in the population 

being studied have no chance or an unknown chance of being selected in the sample.

3

For certain types of contracts, in which the exact quantity of goods or services needed 

during the period of performance is unknown at the time of award, DOE may establish a 

maximum value for the contract. We included six such contracts in our nonprobability 

sample that had a maximum value of $5 million or greater. However, in determining the total 

value of the contracts in our nonprobability sample, we calculated the value of these six 

contracts as $0. We did so because DOE reports the value of such contracts as $0, rather 

than reporting the maximum value established at the time of the award. Accordingly, the 

value of these contracts would also be $0 in DOE’s calculation of the total value of its 

contracts in fiscal years 2002 through 2005. We relied on DOE’s calculation in order to 

determine the percentage of the total value of DOE’s contracts that was represented by our 

nonprobability sample. As a result, we remained consistent with DOE’s methodology, rather 

than potentially overstating the value of the contracts in our sample by including the 

maximum value.

Location providing contract 

information Affiliation

Value of contracts, 

$5 million or greater

Value of contracts, as a 

percentage of the total value 

for all of the department’s 

contracts, $5 million or greater

Albuquerque Service Center, N. 

Mex.

NNSA $282,094,471 1.7

Chicago Service Center, Ill. Science 826,878,347 5.1

Idaho Operations Office, Idaho EM and Nuclear Energy 7,798,881,546 48.0

Oak Ridge Operations Office, Tenn. EM, NNSA, Science 121,239,623 0.7
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 31 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Source: GAO analysis of DOE data.

Notes: Affiliation refers to the department’s component organizations—such as the Office of 

Environmental Management (EM), the Office of Science, or the National Nuclear Security 

Administration (NNSA)—overseeing work at the locations we contacted.

Contracting data in the table reflects contracts that were awarded in fiscal years 2002 through 2005 

through a competitive or noncompetitive process. It does not include contracts awarded prior to fiscal 

year 2002 that the department took action to renew or extend in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, 

beyond the initial period of performance, because extending an existing contract eliminates the 

opportunity for such a process to occur.

To determine whether DOE adhered to its planned dates for awarding the 

contracts in our nonprobability sample, we used contract file documents, 

obtained from the seven locations, to identify and then compare the 

planned and actual contract award dates. We considered contracts to be 

delayed if the actual award date was later than the planned award date. In 

most cases, we identified the planned award date in DOE’s schedule for 

completing key steps of the contract award process that DOE included in 

its formal written plan for awarding the contract. Because DOE guidance 

generally requires a plan and schedule when awarding contracts valued at 

$5 million or greater, the schedules in the written plan generally provided a 

consistent source for the planned award date. However, for 9 of the 31 

contracts in our sample, we had to obtain the planned award date from 

another source because the associated plan and/or schedule was missing 

from the contract file. In these cases, we obtained the planned award date 

from references in other required file documents, such as the document 

used to justify noncompetitive awards or presentations by officials 

involved in awarding the contract. Similarly, for nearly all of the 31 

Portsmouth & Paducah Project 

Office, Lexington, Ky.

EM 792,227,652 4.9

Richland Operations Office, Wash. EM 1,606,499,515 9.9

Savannah River Operations Office, 

S.C.

EM and NNSA 460,033,679 2.8

Total for contracts selected in the nonprobability sample $11,887,854,833 73.1

Total for contracts not selected in the nonprobability sample $4,371,971,440 26.9

Total for all of the department’s contracts $16,259,826,273 100.0

(Continued From Previous Page)

Location providing contract 

information Affiliation

Value of contracts, 

$5 million or greater

Value of contracts, as a 

percentage of the total value 

for all of the department’s 

contracts, $5 million or greater
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 32 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

contracts in our sample, we identified the actual award date from the 

award date written on the signed contract.4

 However, for 2 of the 31 

contracts, the signed contract was not available in the contract file, and we 

instead obtained the award date from the data system DOE uses to track its 

contract awards.

In addition to determining whether the 31 contracts in our nonprobability 

sample were awarded by the planned date, we used contract file 

documents to calculate how long it took DOE to make the awards. We did 

so by calculating the elapsed time from the date DOE initiated the contract 

award process to the date it awarded the contract. For 23 contracts, we 

used the date of the formal written plan for carrying out the contract award 

process as the date DOE initiated the process.5

 Although some planning 

steps typically preceded the preparation of the written plan, 

documentation of the steps was generally not consistently available in the 

contract files we reviewed. In contrast, the formal written plan was a 

required and more consistently available source. However, for 8 of the 31 

contracts in our sample, we had to obtain the initiation date of the contract 

award process from a source other than the date of the written plan 

because the plan was undated or missing from the contract file. In these 

cases, we used contract file documents prepared during the early steps of 

the contract award process, such as correspondence from DOE officials 

approving the start of the process.

4

For 4 of the 31 contracts in our sample, the department initially awarded an interim 

contract, known as a letter contract, until issuing a finalized contract at a later date. In these 

cases, we used the letter contract date as the date of the award. According to officials from 

DOE’s Office of Procurement and Assistance Management and NNSA’s Office of Acquisition 

and Supply Management, letter contracts were seldom used, but sometimes necessary, for 

awarding contracts and starting the work more quickly. The officials also said that most of 

the contents of the letter contracts are final except, most typically, contract price, which is 

determined in the finalized version.

5

DOE guidance from 2004 on preparing the required plans for carrying out the remaining 

steps of the contract award process suggests that the plan include a publication date for the 

plan, as well as approval signatures and dates. For 19 of the 31 contracts in our sample, we 

used the plans’ publication date as the date DOE initiated the contract award process. In 

four cases, in which the publication date was not available, we used the date of the earliest 

approval signature. In the remaining cases, in which neither of these dates were available, 

we used the plan approval date listed in the plan’s schedule of dates for the process, or other 

sources. In addition, where only a month and year were referenced, and we could not 

determine the full date of a plan through any contract file documents reviewed in our study, 

we assumed the action to be completed on the fifteenth day of the month.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 33 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Furthermore, we identified some of the reasons for delays DOE 

experienced in awarding contracts in our sample, in part, by contacting 

DOE officials involved in awarding the contract. We also reviewed contract 

file documents, such as meeting records and the descriptions of the 

contract award process included in key documents generated during the 

contract award process. When contract file documents were used to 

determine the causes of delays, two analysts involved in this study 

independently reviewed the documents to verify that the causes were 

reasonably identified.

To further identify causes for delays, we analyzed documentation from bid 

protests filed with GAO in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, in addition to the 

bid protest guidance issued by GAO’s Office of General Counsel. We 

analyzed this documentation because it could potentially describe 

problems encountered by DOE during the contract award process. In 

correcting any problems, DOE may have repeated steps in the process, 

eventually delaying the contract award. When bid protest documents were 

used to determine whether (1) the contract award being protested was also 

in our sample of contracts that we analyzed for delays or (2) corrective 

action was agreed to by DOE or recommended by GAO as a result of the 

protest, two analysts involved in this study independently reviewed the 

documents to verify that the causes were reasonably identified.

To determine overall impacts of any delays in awarding DOE’s contracts, as 

well as the extent to which the department has taken steps to address the 

delays, we interviewed headquarters contracting officials from the Office 

of Procurement and Assistance Management, as well as contracting and 

program officials from the department’s three largest DOE component 

organizations, and officials from the Office of Engineering and 

Construction Management, who oversee planning and management of 

capital projects. Also, we interviewed contracting and program officials at 

six of the seven field locations from which we selected contracts for our 

nonprobability sample as follows:6

• Albuquerque Service Center (NNSA), New Mexico;

6

Although we obtained file documentation for one of the 31 contracts in our nonprobability 

sample from DOE’s Chicago Service Center, we did not contact officials at that location 

because we spoke instead with a headquarters Office of Science official involved with the 

contract award process.
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 34 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

• Idaho Operations Office (EM and Nuclear Energy), Idaho;

• Oak Ridge Operations Office (EM, Science, NNSA), Tennessee;

• Portsmouth and Paducah Project Office (EM), Lexington, Kentucky;

• Richland Operations Office (EM), Washington; and

• Savannah River Operations Office (EM and NNSA), South Carolina.

Furthermore, for contracts in our sample, we analyzed file documents for 

evidence of adverse impacts upon companies competing for the work 

resulting from any delays in carrying out the contract award process. We 

examined transcripts from some debriefing sessions that DOE held with 

companies after awarding the contract, as well as other documents, such as 

correspondence from companies or their representatives. To further 

understand the impacts of delays, we also examined documents related to 

DOE’s contract award for environmental cleanup of its Paducah, Kentucky, 

site, even though this contract was not part of our sample. DOE’s Office of 

Procurement and Assistance Management provided us with its analysis of 

lessons learned and the factors that delayed this contract award. We 

reviewed the contract file documents to better understand the context of 

this analysis. However, we excluded the contract from our sample because 

DOE awarded it in fiscal year 2006 and, therefore, it did not fit our selection 

criteria. As a result, we did not include the contract in calculations or 

figures showing the extent of delays in awarding DOE contracts.

In addition, we reviewed federal and DOE regulations that govern 

contracting, DOE policy and guidance on contracting, and documents on 

the department’s assessment of its performance in carrying out its contract 

awards. We also reviewed GAO’s Framework for Assessing the 

Acquisition Function at Federal Agencies for determining the 

effectiveness of DOE’s management and oversight of the contract award 

process.

We conducted our work from July 2005 to June 2006 in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards.
Page 35 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Energy ApendxiI
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Energy

Page 36 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Energy

Page 37 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process
Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Energy

Page 38 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process
Page 39 GAO-06-722 DOE Contract Award Process

Appendix III

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiI

GAO Contact Gene Aloise (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov

Staff 

Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Bill Swick, Assistant Director; 

Carole Blackwell, Nora Boretti, Kevin Jackson, Greg Marchand, Alison 

O’Neill, Jeff Rueckhaus, and Gretchen Snoey made key contributions to 

this report.

(360606)
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