Why do GWACs Exist? A Short History.

(*This article was published and released on LinkedIn October 13, 2025.)

As the calls for contract consolidation continue, we hear the Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalition of Self-Interests continually tease how no other agency other than GSA should be responsible for government-wide acquisitions.  These interests have used an administrative initiative to advance their special interest, none of which have to do with efficiency or effectiveness, but stereotypical of the swamp that the Administration seeks to continue to drain.

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Let’s first review the basic argument that this Coalition of Self-Interests employs:

“This administration is seeking to remake public administration and reduce the duplication that exists in and between federal programs (not a bad goal!).  GSA was established in 1949 to manage the general services for government.  Therefore, all duplicative government-wide acquisition programs should fall under GSA.”

On the face of it, this would seem to make a lot of sense, doesn’t it?  The problem is this position ignores the history and conditions that required the government to force changes in the 1990’s.  It also ignores the track records of the respective programs since then.

The Establishment of the General Services Administration

In late 1940’s President Harry Truman needed a general contractor to help with the White House, so he and Congress established the General Services Administration whereby an agency was created from the Federal Works Agency (Building Construction and Property Management) and the Bureau of Federal Supply which they inherited from the Department of Treasury.  They were also responsible for creating; first the Federal Property Management Regulations which then became the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

The Establishment of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act of 1974 was created 25 years later which centralized policy oversight of federal procurement across agencies removing that responsible from the General Services Administration in order to coordinate, guide, and set policy for procurement across the federal government.

To get a sense of how the acquisition of equipment and supplies worked then take a moment (link in description below) and watch this scene from Season 2 Episode 12 ("Incubator") of the classic TV show M*A*S*H (* Warning: Over 50 may remember it, under 50 may not quite get it).

Write in "pizza" where it says "machine gun"

As difficult it was for Col. Blake, Hawkeye, and Honeycutt to procure the “Incubator” they needed to execute their mission (saving soldiers' lives), procuring Information Technology at the speed of mission was just as painful a process for the federal government in the 1980’s. 

The Establishment of the GWAC

NASA engineers wanted to break through this system and create an easier, better, more efficient and more effective means to procure the engineering workstations they required to execute their mission.  Due to their organizational reputation for innovation and mission orientation, NASA was asked by the Office of Management and Budget to conduct an experiment with this new construct they were considering, the Government-Wide Acquisition Contract.  This action was well within OFPP’s authority under the OFPP Act of 1974, and NASA accepted this responsibility that came with the executive designation.  In 1993 NASA then awarded government’s first GWAC.  This mechanism then became a part of the Federal Acquisition Reform Act of 1996, which coupled with the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 constitute the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 legislation.

What was the Purpose of Establishing the GWAC construct?

In the late 1980’s early 1990’s GSA’s Federal Supply Schedule was seen as:

• Rigid and slow in adapting to rapidly evolving information technology markets.

• Product-focused, not well-suited for complex IT integration and services.

• Limited in competition and flexibility for agencies wanting large-scale, turnkey IT solutions.

When Clinger-Cohen established the concept of Government-wide Acquisition Contracts for IT they defined it as simply a task-order or delivery-order contract for IT established by one agency for use by all agencies and designated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

“The Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy may designate one or more executive agencies to enter into and manage Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) for information technology” and underscored that they were a separate statutory authority (40 U.S.C. § 11302(e) (Clinger–Cohen)) distinct from the Federal Supply Schedule system (40 U.S.C. § 501).

This makes clear that they specifically wanted this structure outside the culture of the General Services Administration, which is why it created the authority for NASA and NIH to establish such contracts, as long as OMB designated them.  The creation of the GWAC then was deliberate decentralization away from the General Services Administration.

OMB designated several agencies as Executive Agents for GWACs:

• NASA SEWP – OMB Designation (1996)

• NIH CIO-SP – OMB Designation (1997)

• DoD DISA DITCO contracts – briefly designated in 1998

• Later: GSA received its own GWAC designations (for ANSWER, Millennia, etc.), but as one of several, not the sole source.

  
  

This sequence reinforces that GWACs were conceived as a multi-agency innovation authority to decentralize IT contracting power, counterbalancing GSA’s monopoly.

Lastly, OMB’s memos consistently emphasized:

• GWACs were “intended to encourage innovation and leverage specialized agency expertise”

• They required central oversight by OMB to avoid duplication or fragmentation.

• They existed “in addition to, not as part of” the GSA system.

So as excited as the Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalition of Self-Interests are at eliminating NASA’s program and superseding OMB’s statutory authority for issuing Executive Agency designations, this is clearly against the origins of the GWAC concept’s which was to expressly establish vehicles outside of the General Services Administration.  Couple this with how NASA has performed in their stewardship of their responsibilities, you can see why OMB would conclude that GSA is correct on driving consolidation, just not with NASA’s program as part of their portfolio.  They first must begin with themselves.

What would government-wide contract consolidation look in the extreme?  It would consist of the OASIS GWAC for the scope of that work they do, NASA’s GWAC for IT product and service acquisitions, and the Federal Supply Schedule for the non-OASIS, non-SEWP scope of work that would remain.  Government, and industry, would be down to a workable three vehicles which would appear to cover enough territory for them to consider as tools.  It would also give GSA’s Federal Schedule of Supply program an opportunity to reform itself…. again. 

OMB could very well come to this decision, and they would not be wrong in doing so.