Section 550.332  Formal Advertising – Award of Contract

a)         The Agency shall evaluate all bids in accordance with the methods and criteria in the bidding documents.

b)         The Agency shall award a fixed price agreement to the lowest, responsive, responsible bidder.  Where specified in the bidding documents, factors such as discounts, transportation costs, and life cycle costs shall be considered in determining the low bid.  Payment discounts may be used to determine low bid only when prior experience of the Agency indicates that it generally accepts such discounts.

c)         The Agency may reject all bids only when it has sound, documented business reasons which are in the best interest of the program for which USEPA assistance is awarded (see Section 550.307 "Documentation").