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WASHINGTON – The Government Accountability Office has denied Boeing’s protest of the US Air Force’s decision to award Northrop Grumman a contract to build the Long Range Strike Bomber, allowing Northrop to move forward with engineering and development work after a three-month delay.
"GAO reviewed the challenges to the selection decision raised by Boeing and has found no basis to sustain or uphold the protest," GAO wrote in the Feb. 16 decision. "In denying Boeing’s protest, GAO concluded that the technical evaluation, and the evaluation of costs, was reasonable, consistent with the terms of the solicitation, and in accordance with procurement laws and regulations."
Northrop had hit pause on LRS-B work after Boeing and partner Lockheed filed a bid protest with the GAO Nov. 6 over the Oct. 27 contract award. But now the company can move forward with engineering and development work, in anticipation of a tentative 2025 date for initial operating capability. The contract, the largest military aircraft contract since Lockheed won the F-35 joint strike fighter more than a decade ago, is expected to top $55 billion over the life of the program.
The Air Force has allotted about $12.1 billion in research, development, test and evaluation funds for LRS-B over the next five years, according to the service’s fiscal year 2017 budget request. This figure is about $3.5 billion less than the Air Force had planned for last year, a delta that reflects an updated cost estimate since the service awarded Northrop the contract.
Boeing and Lockheed called the selection process for the LRS-B “fundamentally flawed” in a joint statement at the time the protest was filed, taking issue specifically with the cost evaluation performed by the government. But the companies faced long odds of a successful protest. As a recent annual report on the defense acquisition system noted, only around 2 percent of defense protests were actually upheld in 2013, the last year data was available. This rate is lower than the overall federal rate for that year, which was just under 4 percent.
Additionally, the Air Force, clearly eager to avoid a repeat of the decade-long tanker saga when a Boeing protest eventually reversed the original award to Airbus, took great pains to insulate the LRS-B award.
The GAO denied the protest despite the revelation last week that a top Air Force acquisition official had failed to report a Northrop retirement account held by his spouse in his annual public financial disclosure form. The timing of the news raised questions about implications to the protest decision, but the Air Force maintained that the official, Richard Lombardi, was not involved in the LRS-B source-selection process and was not the service acquisition executive at the time. The Air Force reassigned Lombardi to duties outside the acquisition portfolio and referred the issue to the Inspector General.
GAO Denies Boeing’s Protest of Bomber Contract; Northrop Gets Back to Work
"GAO reviewed the challenges to the selection decision raised by Boeing and has found no basis to sustain or uphold the protest," GAO wrote in the Feb. 16 decision. "In denying Boeing’s protest, GAO concluded that the technical evaluation, and the evaluation of costs, was reasonable, consistent with the terms of the solicitation, and in accordance with procurement laws and regulations."
Northrop had hit pause on LRS-B work after Boeing and partner Lockheed filed a bid protest with the GAO Nov. 6 over the Oct. 27 contract award. But now the company can move forward with engineering and development work, in anticipation of a tentative 2025 date for initial operating capability. The contract, the largest military aircraft contract since Lockheed won the F-35 joint strike fighter more than a decade ago, is expected to top $55 billion over the life of the program.
The Air Force has allotted about $12.1 billion in research, development, test and evaluation funds for LRS-B over the next five years, according to the service’s fiscal year 2017 budget request. This figure is about $3.5 billion less than the Air Force had planned for last year, a delta that reflects an updated cost estimate since the service awarded Northrop the contract.
Boeing and Lockheed called the selection process for the LRS-B “fundamentally flawed” in a joint statement at the time the protest was filed, taking issue specifically with the cost evaluation performed by the government. But the companies faced long odds of a successful protest. As a recent annual report on the defense acquisition system noted, only around 2 percent of defense protests were actually upheld in 2013, the last year data was available. This rate is lower than the overall federal rate for that year, which was just under 4 percent.
Additionally, the Air Force, clearly eager to avoid a repeat of the decade-long tanker saga when a Boeing protest eventually reversed the original award to Airbus, took great pains to insulate the LRS-B award.
The GAO denied the protest despite the revelation last week that a top Air Force acquisition official had failed to report a Northrop retirement account held by his spouse in his annual public financial disclosure form. The timing of the news raised questions about implications to the protest decision, but the Air Force maintained that the official, Richard Lombardi, was not involved in the LRS-B source-selection process and was not the service acquisition executive at the time. The Air Force reassigned Lombardi to duties outside the acquisition portfolio and referred the issue to the Inspector General.
GAO Denies Boeing’s Protest of Bomber Contract; Northrop Gets Back to Work
