Join Us for a Discussion About the Legal Risks of Building Green
The Legal Risks in Building Green - Learn how to protect your project and yourself....
The Legal Risks in Building Green - Learn how to protect your project and yourself....
By: Mark J. Stempler
The case: INSIGHT SYSTEMS CORP., and CENTERSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. THE UNITED STATES
The court: The United States Court of Federal Claims
A computer glitch forced disqualified proposers to challenge a U.S. government agency. Here is an abridged version of what happened. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) advertised a Request for Quotations (RFQ). Eventually during the process, proposers were allowed to submit their revised final quotes either in hard copy form, or electronically via email. If the proposer submitted the quote electronically, it was its proposer’s responsibility to send in the appropriate information, and to do so timely to the people designated to receive it.
The two Plaintiffs in this case submitted quotations in response, and did so electronically and in their opinion, before the deadline. The way the system was set up, emails from outside sources directed to the specified USAID email addresses pass from the outside mail server through a sequence of three (3) agency-controlled computer servers, before they are ultimately delivered to the recipients. To make a long story short, the emails were received by the first USAID server, but due to technical error, were not passed on to the ultimate recipients until after the submittal deadline. USAID notified the proposers that their proposals would not be considered because they were received after the deadline. Arguing that late is late, the USAID felt that it did not matter whether the perceived lateness was due to technological malfunctions with its own computer system.
The U.S. Green Building Council’s long awaited updates to the LEED Rating System are almost complete. LEED v4 has been in the works for more than a year. The likely final public comment period for the new rating system ends on March 31st, and voting on the changes is scheduled to begin June 1st.
There are some significant changes in LEED v4. It will include a new credit category, Location and Transportation. As the name suggests it focuses in part on location of buildings and connectivity to them. Some of the credits in this category, such as bicycle storage, reduced parking capacity and low-emitting vehicles are already part of the existing Sustainable Sites category, so they are just being moved. Speaking of which, a new credit for rainwater management has been added to the Sustainable Sites category in LEED V4, which will be an opportunity to earn points for capturing, treating and controlling on-site runoff.
There are some significant changes in the Water Efficiency category. There will be three prerequisites: Outdoor Water Use Reduction (applicable to projects with exterior vegetated areas); Indoor Water Use Reduction (like the former "Water Use Reduction" prerequisite, it requires 20% water use reduction, and will also require a WaterSense label for certain fixtures and fittings); and Building Level Water Metering (applicable to all projects, it calls for permanent water meters to measure usage, and the data must be shared with the USGBC for 5 years). There are also new credits for Cooling Tower Use and Water Metering.
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The general rule is that bid protests must be timely filed in order to be considered. Most government agencies in Florida have specific deadlines for which a bid protest must be filed. These deadlines are expressed in terms of days, or even hours, and may specify the exact method that the protest or notice of protest must be submitted to be considered timely filed. A Protest filed after the deadline is usually considered a waiver of the protestor’s rights. There are, however, scenarios where a protest technically filed after the deadline may still be considered. This is exemplified in the recent case Pro Tech Monitoring, Inc. v. State Department of Corrections. There, a protesting bidder was supposed to hand-deliver its formal bid protest petition to the clerk by a certain date. The agency’s clerk, however, did not stamp the petition in until the next day, and the agency determined the protest was untimely. However, the protestor had tried...
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