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. 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. 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 recommending that the agency take corrective action, or by denying or dismissing the protest. 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. 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. 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 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. (See fig. 1.) 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. 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 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 the process in response to companies that filed bid protests with GAO. 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. 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.