Federal Agencies Funnel Contracts Through GSA Gateways

Federal agencies are moving more contracting opportunities into existing vehicles, concentrating access to public business in a narrower set of procurement channels. That shift affects which companies can compete, as short-staffed acquisition offices increasingly turn to vehicles run by the General Services Administration or other large contract systems.

Who Controls the Gateway

Kathleen Sievers, director of research at Deltek, said agencies were shifting opportunities to indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts, governmentwide acquisition contracts and other vehicles, including other transaction authorities. Executive orders and memorandums encourage consolidation and use of GSA-owned and operated vehicles, extending a category-management trend that has grown more aggressive.

The Cyberdome and ASCEND BPA opportunities didn't proceed as expected. An Air Force Research Laboratory multiple-award contract called AMAC appeared in Deltek's top 20 unrestricted opportunities as a research-and-development project. A week later, the agency announced it wouldn't proceed, opting instead to use existing vehicles and other transaction authorities. Consolidation is also making some procurements larger.

Sievers said the departures of experienced contracting officials under DOGE left acquisition offices short-staffed and less able to manage independent procurements. Agencies are therefore leaning on GSA or larger vehicles. A return to more independent contracting is possible, she said, but uncertain.

The scale is substantial. Deltek's top opportunities include a sixth-generation Defense Logistics Agency Special Operation Equipment Tailored Logistics Support Program with a $60 billion ceiling and a fourth GSA STARS recompete valued at $50 billion. Together, they carry a cumulative ceiling of $110 billion. The DLA ceiling rose from $33 billion to $60 billion in January 2026, although the current contract isn't due to expire until 2030. The program supports rapid equipment response for overseas conflicts and other needs, including technology and scuba gear. Contract ceilings don't necessarily equal actual spending, Sievers cautioned, though the logistics program is spending its funds.

Who Gets Pushed Aside

A large DLA procurement can pull limited contracting staff away from smaller opportunities, which may be delayed or bridged. Those smaller procurements compete for attention inside an apparatus already relying on fewer independent processes.

Changes to the 8(a) program mean an 8(a) sole-source or set-aside award won't necessarily continue through every follow-on or recompete. Agencies may instead seek task-order vehicles or other competitive sources. An audit-related pause meant no new firms entered the 8(a) program from August 2025 to August 2026. Since August 2026, Sievers said, agencies have added tribally or Native owned firms, but no individual Black-owned, Hispanic-owned or other socioeconomic-category firms.

The proposed change to small-business size standards could reshape that competition. In August 2026, the Small Business Administration proposed changes to standards tied to North American Industry Classification System codes, annual receipts or average employee headcount. For IT code 541512, computer systems design services, the current receipts threshold is $34 million; the proposal would raise it to $531 million. That could qualify more companies for small-business set-asides and make it easier to meet the rule of two. But Sievers said larger small businesses would have deeper resources, making competition harder for smaller firms; longer eligibility could also produce more persistent incumbents.

The Rules, and the Risks

Federal procurement isn't only about which vehicle carries a contract. Jim Carroll, CEO of the Professional Services Council, said Congress was working on the final version of the defense authorization bill, with intellectual property and access to technical data among the provisions contractors were watching. Work on the NDAA would begin "almost immediately" after Election Day, he said. The government funding bill expires December 11, and Carroll said there was appetite for another continuing resolution extending funding into late January or possibly February.

Carroll said proposed intellectual-property provisions would go into contracts so the parties knew when the military could quickly produce a one-off item. He said safeguards should stop a third party from taking the intellectual property and mass-producing the item, and could include post-employment restrictions on maintenance personnel taking it to a competitor. Companies had considered leaving the defense market if their intellectual property wasn't protected. The proposed balance primarily applies to major defense acquisition programs.

A separate federal case shows another state concern: control of information. Alex Blanchard, senior counsel at Holland & Knight LLP, said the district court in Manhattan denied Gannon Van Dyke's motion to dismiss the indictment on October 26. Van Dyke, an active-duty special forces soldier, is accused of using confidential classified information to trade event contracts on Polymarket concerning an operation to capture President Maduro in Venezuela. The charges involve the Commodity Exchange Act and its implementing regulations, as well as wire fraud; he faces potentially years in prison.

Blanchard said foreign intelligence services were monitoring prediction-market trades and could infer from market movements what might be planned. A contractor could also face criminal exposure, he said, if an employee traded as part of their job to benefit the company and the company knew or recklessly disregarded the conduct. More likely contractor risks include civil enforcement, facility-clearance issues, suspension, debarment and reputational damage.

Federal requests for information and proposals can shape who gets a hearing, too. Carroll said some solicitations were too broad or imprecise, and one-week response periods could make businesses suspect an agency had already selected a contractor. He urged agencies to define the problem without dictating an exact solution, give companies enough time and allow terms broad enough for competition. For contractors navigating the maze, Sievers advised researching major IDIQs and subcontracting opportunities, identifying task-order winners, and responding through GSA R-MAS and SAM.gov. That's the map she offered; the agencies still control the gates.