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B-165504 1 (1970-03-10)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabksf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 




                              WASHINGTON 0 C 205483


   B-165504                            RELEASED




                                                            MAR i o 1971

   Dear Mr. Wold;

        Reference is made to your letter of January 29, 1970, transmitting
   a copy of a letter dated January 8, 1970, which you received from
   Mr. Russell L. Donley of Western Engineers-Architects, Inc. Mr. Donley's
   letter refers, in substance, to questions raised in an article in the
   Consulting Engineer Magazine, a copy of which he enclosed, relative to
   the decision of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to continue to
   obtain airport obstruction survey  hats from the-Coast and Geodetic Sur-
   vqy.__ather than to procure such charts from private industry. In your
   letter you referred to a review of the airi6  bstriktion chart program
   performed by this Office for Congressman Frank M. Clark and requested
   that we inform you regarding the results of our work in this area.

        We first commented on the cost of the airport obstruction chart
   program in a report to the Chairman of the House Committee on Merchant
   Marine and Fisheries (B-165504, December 10, 1968). The Chair mn had
   requested that we make a study, in accordance with the principles set
   forth in Bureau of the Budget (BOB) Circular No. A-76, of (1) the costs
   of obtaining airport obstruction charts from the Coast and Geodetic Sur-
   vey, compared with the costs of obtaining such charts by contract with
   private industry on the basis of proposals received in response to FAA's
   solicitation of May 2, 1968, and (2) the added costs which would be in-
   curred for evaluation of the contractor's performance.

        On the basis of our study, we concluded that, under the proposed
   alternatives, it would have been more costly to the Government if FAA
   had contracted for the airport obstruction charts with the private com-
   pany who submitted the lowest technically responsive proposal.

        Our conclusion, combined with a supporting comparison of estimated
   program costs--contract operations versus Government operations--generated
   considerable concern in the private engineering community. This concern
   has been commented on in letters to various members of the Congress and
   in editorials in trade magazines. We were subsequently requested by
   Congressman Clark and several other members of the Congress to respond
   to such comments questioning (1) the logic of the cost comparison prin-
   ciples set forth in BOB Circular No. A-76, (2) the validity of certain
   cost elements included in the cost comparison set forth in our report to
   the Chairman, and (3) other matters relative to the airport obstruction



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