NASA has been plagued by overrun costs during the Biden Administration, exceeding its roughly $99 billion from taxpayers by about $10 billion, thanks to an aggressive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. As a result, NASA staff are calling on Elon Musk to ‘clean house’.
The Daily Mail writes: “Spending reports from 2020 to 2024 showed NASA awarded grants to universities and consulting firms to support ‘environmental justice’ and initiatives that ’embrace greater diversity and inclusive practices.’ LMI consulting received over $2 million in 2023 for NASA to ’embark on a venture to incorporate and deeply engrain diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the culture and business.”
An additional $3 million went to Booze Allen Hamilton in March alone, to support NASA’s ‘office of diversity and equal opportunity DEI data analytic specialty,’ and $ 7 million was announced last month for six ‘minority-serving institutions.’
A former NASA employee told DailyMail.com that NASA’s DEI is ‘destroying America’s ability to compete with China in space because the Biden-Harris administration will only fund programs that feature it.’ NASA receives, on average, about 0.4 percent of what the US government spends each year, but is still given a budget of at least $20 billion.
Software engineer Kyle Sorensen told he hopes Musk will ‘clean house.’
Musk, along with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, was tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency that aims to ‘slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies.’
The Daily Mail adds:
The American space agency began incorporating diversity and equal employment opportunity elements into supervisors’ performance plans in 2005 but did not hold leaders fully accountable until 2021. This shift coincided with the Biden-Harris Administration’s executive order, emphasizing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within the federal workforce.
NASA’s spending report, first reported on by the Daily Signal, highlighted the following universities that received NASA grants for environmental justice, including the Regents of the University of California that was awarded $250,000 to support ‘Earth Science Applications: Equity and Environmental Justice.’
In 2020, NASA allocated roughly $900,000 to the National Academy of Sciences, a private, non-profit organization. The grant was for ‘increasing diversity and inclusion in the leadership of competed space missions by establishing an ad hoc committee to recommend actions to increase diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the leadership of space mission proposals.’
The Southeastern Universities Research Association was also given thousands of dollars to make the NASA’s heliophysics material ‘more relevant and open to the Latinx and Native American communities.’
DailyMail.com reports it uncovered more DEI grants worth millions that had not published in the spending report, including the funds given to Booz Allen Hamilton.