All bids received in accordance with the terms of the advertisement shall be publicly opened and announced either item by item or by total amount. If any bid received is not read aloud, the name of the bidder and the reason for not reading the bid aloud shall be publicly announced at the letting. Negotiation with contractors, during the period following the opening of bids and before the award of the contract shall not be permitted.

The STD shall prepare and forward tabulations of bids to the Division Administrator. These tabulations shall be certified by a responsible STD official and shall show:

Bid item details for at least the low three acceptable bids and

The total amounts of all other acceptable bids.

In the case of a design-build project, the following requirements apply:

All proposals received must be opened and reviewed in accordance with the terms of the solicitation. The STD must use its own procedures for the following:

The process of handling proposals and information;

The review and evaluation of proposals;

The submission, modification, revision and withdrawal of proposals; and

The announcement of the successful offeror.

The STD must submit a post-award tabulation of proposal prices to the FHWA Division Administrator. The tabulation of price proposal information may include detailed pricing information when available or lump sum price information if itemized prices are not used.

In the case of a CM/GC project, the requirements of this section do not apply. See subpart E of this part for approval procedures.