Comptroller General

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

of the United States

Decision 

Matter of: LaBarge Products, Inc. 

File: B-402280 

Date: January 19, 2010 

John M. Heida, Esq., for the protester. 

Debra Talley, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. 

Cherie J. Owen, Esq., and Ralph O. White, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, 

participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

1. Protester’s challenge to the issuance of a delivery order valued under $10 million--

and hence outside the jurisdiction of GAO’s bid protest forum to hear protests 

involving task and delivery orders--is dismissed. 

2. Protester’s contention that a delivery order was outside the scope of the 

underlying indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract against which the 

order was issued--and hence is eligible for consideration under the statutory 

exemption to the bar on our jurisdiction available when a protester alleges that the 

order increased the scope, period, or maximum value of the ID/IQ contract under 

which the order is issued--is dismissed where the protester itself holds one of the 

underlying ID/IQ contracts; this exemption is not for aggrieved competitors for the 

issuance of the order, but for other entities, who, because they do not hold one of 

the underlying ID/IQ contracts, were not allowed to compete for what is, in essence, 

a new procurement which improperly circumvented the competition requirements of 

the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984. 

DECISION 

LaBarge Products, Inc., of Saint Louis, Missouri, protests the Department of the 

Army’s issuance of a delivery order for fuel and water pump assemblies, valued at 

$2,411,342.40, to DRS Sustainment Systems, Inc. LaBarge alleges that the pumps 

quoted by the winning vendor will not meet the specifications set forth in the 

delivery order, and contends that the agency impermissibly changed the scope of the 

underlying contract by allowing the awardee’s pumps to be used with the Army’s 

Assault Hoseline System--a system with which LaBarge claims only its pumps are 

compatible. Protest at 3-4. 
The protester acknowledges that the delivery order at issue here is valued at less 

than $10 million; however, LaBarge argues that GAO has jurisdiction over its protest 

because it believes the delivery order impermissibly expands the scope of the 

underlying contract. Specifically, the protester argues that, with the issuance of the 

delivery order at issue here, the Army revealed an intended use of the pumps that 

had not been previously disclosed, thereby impermissibly expanding the scope of the 

contract. Id. at 1-2. 

We dismiss the protest. 

Section 843 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, Pub. L. 

No. 110-181, 122 Stat. 3, 237 (2008) (to be codified at 10 U.S.C. § 2304c(e)(1)) 

provides: 

(1) A protest is not authorized in connection with the 

issuance or proposed issuance of a task order or delivery 

order except for -- 

(A) a protest on the ground that the order increases the 

scope, period, or maximum value of the contract under 

which the order is issued; or 

(B) a protest of an order valued in excess of $10,000,000. 

Accordingly, our authority to consider protests challenging the issuance of task or 

delivery orders does not extend to orders valued below $10 million, such as here, 

absent an allegation that the order increases the scope, period, or maximum value of 

the underlying contract. 

LaBarge argues that our Office has jurisdiction to hear this protest because the 

delivery order issued to DRS is outside the scope of the underlying indefinitedelivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract. The protester points to the solicitation 

for the underlying ID/IQ contract for fuel and water pump assemblies, solicitation 

No. W56HZV-09-R-0461, and argues that the solicitation did not notify protesters that 

the pump assemblies would be used in connection with the Assault Hoseline System; 

the protester argues that this system imposes additional requirements for the parts, 

and contends that these additional requirements are not found in the underlying 

ID/IQ contract. LaBarge requests that our Office recommend that the agency 

terminate DRS’s order, and issue the order to LaBarge, since LaBarge is, in its view, 

the only supplier of pumps that meet the agency’s requirements. Protest at 6. 

When a protester alleges that an order is outside the scope of the contract, we 

analyze the protest in essentially the same manner as those in which the protester 

argues that a contract modification is outside the scope of the underlying contract. 

The fundamental issue is whether issuance of the task or delivery order, in effect, 

circumvents the general statutory requirement under the Competition in Contracting 

Page 2 B-402280 
Page 3 B-402280 

Act of 1984 (CICA) that agencies “obtain full and open competition through the use 

of competitive procedures” when procuring their requirements.1 See 10 U.S.C. 

§ 2304(a)(1)(A) (2000); see Anteon Corp., B-293523, B-293523.2, Mar. 29, 2004, 2004 

CPD ¶ 51 at 4-5. In determining whether a task or delivery order (or modification) is 

outside the scope of the underlying contract, and thus falls within CICA’s 

competition requirement, our Office examines whether the order is materially 

different from the original contract. See Specialty Marine, Inc., B-293871, B-293871.2, 

June 17, 2004, 2004 CPD ¶ 130 at 4. 

Although LaBarge cites our decision in Specialty Marine in support of its arguments 

that its protest here concerns a matter of scope, the protester fails to recognize that 

our concern in scope cases is not for aggrieved competitors for the issuance of an 

order (that is, current holders of an ID/IQ contract under which the orders were 

issued). Rather, our concern was whether the issuance of an order would 

circumvent the competition requirements of CICA and deprive other entities--that 

did not compete for and receive one of the underlying contracts--of an opportunity to 

compete for what was, in essence, a new procurement. See, e.g., LBM, Inc., 

B-290682, Sept. 18, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 157 at 5-7. 

In contrast, LaBarge is concerned with whether the agency has properly issued a 

delivery order to DRS, rather than LaBarge. Thus, although LaBarge has framed its 

arguments as raising a question about the scope of the contract, the crux of its 

protest concerns the agency’s evaluation of the competing quotes. Because the value 

of the delivery order is below $10 million, we do not have authority to review the 

issuance of this order. 

Further, with regard to the protester’s argument that the specifications of the 

underlying ID/IQ contract should have been more restrictive, our Office generally 

will not consider such contentions. Our role in reviewing bid protests is to ensure 

that the statutory requirements for full and open competition are met, not to protect 

a protester’s interest in more restrictive specifications. Simplix, B-274388, Dec. 6, 

1996, 96-2 CPD ¶ 216 at 5-6. 

The protest is dismissed. 

Lynn H. Gibson 

Acting General Counsel 

 

1

 This is consistent with the rule applied by the United States Court of Federal Claims 

with respect to whether a contract modification is outside the scope of a contract. 

See, e.g., CCL, Inc. v. United States, 39 Fed.Cl. 780, 791 (Fed. Cl. 1997) (“Contract 

modifications may not materially depart from the scope of the original procurement; 

otherwise the modification prevents the complaining party (and other potential 

bidders) from competing for what is, in reality, a new and different contract.”)