The Market is Speaking!!! 

June 30, 2026

 

Often a leader steps into a role only to find the stage already set for them. Administrator Forst now occupies an especially unenviable position. He must find a way to satisfy the Executive Order he inherited while navigating a marketplace that is already speaking at an unmistakable volume. But the inheritance goes deeper than that. He has also taken on a policy initiative shaped by the gatekeeping priorities of the General Services Administration and the revolving‑door interests that orbit your organization.

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The interests surrounding your organization have attempted to steer govcon policy and acquisition‑vehicle control before; most notably between 2004 and 2006. Emily Murphy, Roger Waldron, Bill Gormley (then federal officials), and Larry Allen (as Coalition President) were central to that push. These same figures (joined later by Alan Thomas, whose brief GSA appointment lasted just over two years) were involved in shaping the very Executive Order you are now forced to navigate. Wiser heads prevailed the last time they attempted this.

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These gatekeepers continue to prod you toward advancing their long‑standing goal: consolidating control over government procurement and procurement policy. They have also influenced your organization’s understanding of the role they believe it should play within the federal landscape. I don’t need to name them individually; you only need to look at your own leadership to see their imprint.

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Fortunately, the marketplace, both government and industry, is already signaling what it thinks of the path these interests have set you on. Unfortunately, the feedback is not favorable. Worse, many are beginning to wonder whether your internal staff is giving you the same warnings, or whether they are urging you to continue down the course that was laid out for you.

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Proof of the situation is already visible in marketplace data, actions, and behaviors. When outcomes diverge from what should be happening, it becomes necessary to ask whether something else is influencing the environment. Two key data points strongly suggest that your staff and gatekeeping advisors may not be giving you the full picture.

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First, NASA’s SEWP announcement last week. In Jason Miller’s FNN reporting, the NASA program manager noted a 7% increase in utilization under the existing agreement. That is not what typically occurs. As a government‑wide vehicle approaches sunset, usage normally tapers off. Contracting commands across government prefer greater assurance that the agreements they award will remain stable for the duration of their performance period. This doesn’t mean they cannot use a sunsetting vehicle, nor that existing agreements won’t run their full term (five‑year agreements often do). But there is a predictable skepticism cycle during transitions. A 7% increase during that period is an anomaly, and anomalies usually indicate that something else is happening beneath the surface.

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Second, the issue of “direct agreements.” Some OEMs say they are comfortable with them because the terms render them largely symbolic. Others regret entering them. It is clearly working better for some than for others. But the more telling question is whether you are seeing agencies pursue direct paths outside your OneGov Schedules structure. I am seeing it. Others are seeing it. And many are asking whether these market signals are reaching your level—or whether the data is being filtered before it gets to you, accompanied by assurances that everything is proceeding according to plan.

The difficult position you now occupy is that the policy you inherited is producing the opposite of its intended outcome. The architects of this initiative wanted consolidation under GSA. Instead, the marketplace is fragmenting further, with more direct agreements not fewer.

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The good news, however, is that you and the agency can legitimately claim that the initial consolidation goal has been met, and you would be correct in making that claim. NIH has agreed to sunset its NITAAC program, a difficult decision given its history as the first GWAC created after the passage of Clinger‑Cohen. 2GIT also appears to be closing and absorbed.

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A reasonable case can be made that the first phase of consolidation has been achieved. With NASA’s successful SEWP VI awards, including the first set of awards accessible to the small‑business community in more than a decade, GSA could voluntarily close its Alliant and Polaris GWACs. I have not conducted a line‑by‑line comparison of the vendor bases, but my understanding is that they are very close.

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Then comes the central question: What becomes of NASA’s program? They have just awarded their contracts (the first small‑business GWACs in a decade) and they have done so within a model that allows graduating small businesses, now mid‑size firms, to continue adding value and meeting agency needs. They also operate at a speed and efficiency that your program, and your agency, simply do not match. If you are told that your agency has a plan that will preserve the integrity of this model, the people telling you that are not being honest with themselves…or with you.

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The goal of what you inherited, Administrator Forst, was never to maintain the model. It was driven by agency gatekeepers who insisted that eliminating competition would solve government’s procurement challenges. Their logic was simple: remove competing GWACs and consolidate authority, and they gain greater control over government‑wide policy and acquisition mechanisms. They will tell you this has been their right since 1949. What they will not tell you is that this supposed policy and functional birthright has been eroded, piece by piece, over the decades since.

Here is a counter‑intuitive fact: the gatekeepers advising you keep saying, “We’ll make ’em do it through mandates.” But the fastest way to push an agency to seek an alternative to GSA is to mandate GSA. Your teams at FAS and OGP may not know this (or may not be willing to admit it) but federal agencies certainly do.

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If you listen to the marketplace today (government, contractors, and industry alike) they are telling you something very different. And the trajectory is clear: the outcome will be the exact opposite of what was intended. As this plays out, it risks being seen as an Administrator‑level failure precisely because it produces the inverse of the stated goal.

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Agencies are losing one of the things that matters most to them: choice. Gatekeepers have once again tried to position your Schedules program as the universal answer to every procurement question. Unfortunately, the program is as calcified and arthritic as the individuals who continue pushing it and the notion that killing SEWP, or stripping it away from NASA (which amounts to the same thing), would somehow solve your agency’s problems is simply not credible.

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This is an opportunity for you now, Administrator Forst. You can follow the primrose path laid before you, or you can change course. You could tell OMB and OFPP:

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“Consider NASA’s program to be yours. It adheres to the FAR, and every agency uses it. NASA will manage it on our behalf, and the data will be shared. That means we have consolidation work to do on our end—beginning with sunsetting Alliant and Polaris. As for Schedules, we will evaluate whether OneGov can scale direct agreements, but IT products and services through Schedules have become redundant with what NASA has already built—and by every measure, built better than we have. For the remainder of the Trump Administration, we encourage agencies to leverage NASA’s model while we design a new structure at GSA. That includes creating a buying platform that fits seamlessly into the workflow of the exchange. We will also reassess the scope of OASIS+. If IT were included, with onboarding and offboarding, we would be positioned to sunset the Schedules program entirely. It has been operational since 1948. Naval ships and aircraft are retired long before that. We believe it is time for Schedules to do the same.”

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I am not saying you should take this course of action, only that you could. And doing so would:

 

• Complete consolidation and eliminate the duplication that was originally requested.

• Satisfy the Administration’s reform goals by placing these functions under the operational influence of OFPP and OMB, even if not physically, consistent with the broader trend toward a unitary executive.

• Restore GSA’s core mission by refocusing the agency on genuine “service” rather than internal self‑preservation (or "serve us").

• Remove entrenched gatekeepers and the revolving‑door interests surrounding GSA. Neither NASA nor OFPP carries the same orbit of external stakeholders whose influence ultimately increases costs for federal buyers. Eliminate Schedules, and you eliminate the gatekeepers’ honey pot.

 

Just some thoughts as I head into the Fourth of July weekend. I genuinely wish Administrator Forst well in his decision‑making. I remain unsure whether he is being told the truth by those around him; the interests are too entrenched, the shortcomings too significant.

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Perhaps, though, he will listen to the marketplace. It will tell him everything he needs to know, so long as he is willing to hear it.

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                                                                                                                                                                           ~ J. Johnson