Another day, another executive order (EO) that will transform federal procurement as we know it. A March 20, 2025 EO entitled “Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement” and its accompanying fact sheet call for “[c]onsolidating domestic Federal procurement in the General Services Administration” (GSA), at least with regard to “common goods and services.” 

More specifically, within 60 days, agency heads are required to consult their senior procurement officials and submit proposals to the Administrator of General Services, outlining how the GSA can conduct domestic procurement of common goods and services for their agency. Within 90 days, the Administrator of General Services must submit a “comprehensive plan” to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director, for the GSA “to procure common goods and services across the domestic components of the Government.” Contractors should note that “common goods and services” is likely defined a little more broadly than they think it is. In this context, it means the common Government-wide categories defined by the Category Management Leadership Council led by the OMB, which includes things like Construction, Medical, Professional Services, Human Capital, and Information Technology (IT).

In fact, IT is further singled out in the order. The EO requires that, within 30 days, the Director of OMB designate the Administrator of General Services as the “executive agent for all Government-wide acquisition contracts for information technology.” The EO goes on to state that the Administrator “shall further, on an ongoing basis and consistent with applicable law, rationalize Government-wide indefinite delivery contract vehicles for information technology for agencies across the Government, including as part of identifying and eliminating contract duplication, redundancy, and other inefficiencies.” However, the EO provides that the Administrator “shall defer or decline the executive agent designation for Government-wide acquisition contracts for information technology when necessary to ensure continuity of service or as otherwise appropriate.” In what circumstances such deferral would be “appropriate” I guess we will have to wait to see; it is possible that this could bring contracts such as NASA SEWP and NIH’s CIO-SP*/CS under GSA purview. The OMB Director has 14 days to issue a memo to agencies implementing this directive.

Contractors should review their existing contracts and assess upcoming target opportunities to see how such contracts or opportunities might be impacted by these new developments. In addition, contractors would be wise to think about how best to position themselves for new contracts in this new GSA-centric system.

This is one of two procurement-related EOs that were expected by month’s end. The other is said to concern changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation. We will keep you posted on all new developments.