E&C Democrats Press DOE Inspector General for More Answers on $20 Million Contract Award Following Inadequate Responses

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-CO), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Kathy Castor (D-FL) sent a follow-up letter to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Inspector General today seeking additional answers for the recent award of a sole source $20 million contract without apparent cause or justification. Today’s letter comes three months after Committee Democrats first opened their inquiry. The Democratic Committee leaders write that, so far, the DOE Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) responses have failed to offer a meaningful explanation as to why it was appropriate to issue a sole source contract.

“Your response provided only a vague description of how it was determined that Robert Rabalais’s firm was the only possible source for the legal services described in the June 11, 2024, Notice of Intent. Additionally, details included in your response and from publicly available sources raise new questions about the circumstances surrounding this $20 million contract award,” the three Committee leaders wrote to Inspector General Teri L. Donaldson. “It remains unclear how OIG could have reasonably determined that a team run by Robert Rabalais was the only possible source to complete this work.”

Typically, when federal agencies seek outside expertise, organizations bid to win the contract, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently. In this case, the DOE OIG awarded the contract directly to the law firm Rabalais & Associates without making clear why it was necessary to bypass the traditional competition process and award the contract directly to a sole source – much less why such a large contract for outside counsel was necessary.

The lawmakers continued by explaining that the OIG’s response failed to justify its determination that its efforts were sufficiently exhaustive to conclude that competition for the contract was unwarranted.

“Democratic Committee staff conducted internet searches using only two of several publicly accessible rankings of the top law firms with expertise in energy and financing and quickly identified 57 potentially qualified law firms. Only six of these law firms were mentioned in your response as having been contacted by your office,” Pallone, DeGette, and Castor continued in their follow-up letter. “Simply put, it appears that your office failed to adequately consider the appropriate universe of firms that might be able to compete for this contract before deciding that one small law firm, in the entire nation, was the only one capable of meeting OIG’s needs.”

The three Committee leaders went on to address a number of other anomalies that have arisen in the wake of OIG’s response to Democrats’ inquiry. For example, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s business entity database, Rabalais & Associates was first registered as a company on August 21, 2024 – 71 days after OIG published its Notice of Intent to make an award to Robert Rabalais.

“Democratic Committee staff could find no evidence of any ‘Robert Rabalais Team’ in existence prior to the creation of Rabalais & Associates P.L.L.C. It is therefore unclear how your office determined that a brand-new entity — that does not appear to have existed when the RFI was issued, nor at the time the intention to award a sole source contract was announced — could responsibly carry out a $20 million contract, let alone be the only firm that could do so,” they wrote.

The three Committee leaders concluded by requesting additional documents and answers, including:

• A copy of Robert Rabalais’s response to the OIG’s April 2024 Request for Information;
• Any communications between Robert Rabalais or any member of his team and the OIG or any member of the OIG’s team;
• An explanation of why the Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) has not been publicly posted, as required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR);
• Details regarding the JOFOC signature page, which does not name the Contracting Activity Legal Counsel;
• A more detailed description of the market research OIG completed before awarding this contract; and
• Complete lists of the law firms OIG considered for the award and the law firms OIG dismissed as possibilities due to alleged conflicts.

A copy of the letter is available HERE.

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