Culham,
Thanks for your response I have read most of the post you mention however many of the cases are related to large business were the SBA COC procedure does not apply. I understand that Further, it is the offeror’s responsibility to submit a well-written proposal, with adequately detailed information which clearly demonstrates compliance with the solicitation and allows a meaningful review by the procuring agency. How ever the GAO has stated that a responsibility factor can not be converted in a responsiveness factor by the procuring agency (I apologize for not having reference but I believe it was from the latest Coastal-Enviroworks case at the COFC).
Therefore back to the question: Can the agency eliminate the proposal as unacceptable in a pass/fail responsibility factor or does it have to refer the case to SBA no mater how deficient the proposal was in that factor?
The solicitation didn't mention the Alternate No.1
Thanks for referring me to FAR 15.307. For what it says a contractor not included in the competitive range does not have right to revise his proposal. However I have read various GAO cases (I apologize for not having the reference again) and in one of the them the protester was alleging that the agency should have not disqualified him and instead should have left him revise his proposal to correct some deficiencies. However GAO said something along the lines of: If the agency decides to award the contract without discussions then we will dismiss the protest however if the agency decides to conduct discussions then we expect that the agency allows the protester to revise his proposal.
It seems to me that in complex FAR 15 solicitations there are so many requirements that submitting each and every details is a very difficult task. That being said I believe that within FAR 15.307 context an agency could eliminate a contractor from the competitive range due to one omission while leaving other contractor that could also have omissions not detected by the agency. This will lead to the unfair scenario where a contractor in the competitive range could revise its proposal trough discussion and an eliminated contractor could not. Is this the way it is?
Thanks again for your input