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![handle is hein.gao/gaocrptajki0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
-e GeAtOa
E Comptroller General
of the United States
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, DC 20548
Decision
Matter of: East Slope Conservation Services
File: B-282661.2
Date: July 9, 1999
Chris Hindoien for the protester.
Triscilla P. Taylor, Esq., and Justin P. Patterson, Esq., Department of the Interior, for
the agency.
Robert C. Arsenoff, Esq., and Paul I. Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel,
GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Protest that solicitation language misled protester to price its offer on the basis that
the agency required acceptance of credit card payment, and that the solicitation
called for experience under agency contracts to be more highly rated than
experience obtained outside the agency is denied where each allegation is based on
pro tester's misreading of the solicitation.
DECISION
East Slope Conservation Services protests the award of a contract to Helena Weed
Control under a commercial item solicitation, No. C50-99-2975, issued as a total small
business set-aside by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Department of the Interior,
for noxious weed control services on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana.
East Slope alleges that, had the solicitation not required offerors to accept payment
by Master Card, East Slope would have submitted the lowest offer. East Slope also
alleges that its successful past performance with BIA should have been evaluated as
superior to the awardee's past performance with another agency.
We deny the protest.
The solicitation was issued on April 14, 1999 with an April 30 closing date. Section
E.3, entitled EVALUATION-COMMERCIAL ITEMS, provided that an award would
be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be
most advantageous to the government, price and other factors considered. That
section further set forth the evaluation factors, stating that: [t]echnical and past
performance, when combined, are significantly less important than cost or price.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaocrptajki0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)