NASA Removes Certain Procurement Language from Manuals

The National Space and Aeronautic Administration (NASA) may be known for sending rockets and astronauts into outer space. What may not be as well-known, however, is that the agency reduced the overall “space” taken up by its grant and cooperative terms and conditions agreement by removing a certain caveat related to procurement with particular businesses.

NASA reissued its terms and conditions document March 21 only six months after releasing its previous version in October 2024. While most of the current document mirrors the previous version, a section (4.2 in the October 2024 version) is no longer included. That deleted section stated the following:

Pursuant to the requirements in 2 CFR § 200.321, Contracting with small and minority businesses, women’s business enterprises, and labor surplus area firms, grant and cooperative agreement recipients shall, to the extent practicable, obtain at least one quotation in response to a recipient-issued request for quotation from a small and/or minority business, women’s business enterprise, or labor surplus area firm when the acquisition of goods or services exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) as defined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 2.101, Definitions (currently the SAT is $250,000). In the event that recipients are unable to obtain at least one quote from a small and/or minority business, women’s business enterprise, or labor surplus area firm, a written justification indicating why this was not possible must be maintained in the recipient’s records.

This entire language was stricken from the March 2025 terms and conditions.

Moreover, the agency also updated and released its NASA Grants and Cooperative Agreement Manual for proposers and recipients. Again, compared to the previous version of this manual that became effective in October 2022, this language related to small and minority businesses, et. al., is no longer included in the 2025 manual. Of the other changes of note in the 2025 version is a new section on preventing grant fraud. It states the following:

Federal grant funds may be susceptible to fraud, waste, and abuse, and it is the responsibility of award recipients to serve as responsible stewards of federal funds and ensure that funds are used for their intended purpose. Grant fraud can occur in many ways, and some of the most common fraud scenarios include charging personal expenses as business expenses against a grant, charging costs to a grant that are not attributable to that grant, billing more than one grant for the same work, and falsifying information in grant applications or reports. To detect and prevent fraud, recipients should establish adequate internal controls as required by 2 CFR § 200.303, Internal controls, and report crime, fraud, waste, and mismanagement in NASA’s programs to the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Considering the efforts of the current administration to remove all traces of diversity, equity and inclusion, it doesn’t shock us at all that the agency removed the sections pertaining to §200.321. A further question will be how many other agencies may follow suit and remove such language within their own agency manuals and guidance for their recipients. Time will tell.

Join us for our following Thompson Grants event:
2025 Federal Grants Forum: Austin, Texas| April 23-24, 2025 | Austin, Texas