NASA FACT SHEET
FY 2022 Budget Request
Construction & Environmental Compliance & Restoration
($ Millions)

Construction & Environmental Compliance Restoration (CECR) provides for capital repairs and improvements to NASA’s infrastructure and environmental compliance and restoration activities. With installations in 14 states, NASA collectively manages an inventory of more than 5,000 buildings and structures, of which 83 percent are beyond designed life. To ensure American preeminence in space, science, technology, and avionics, the Budget funds repair, replacement, and modernization of NASA’s infrastructure. The FY 2022 budget provides for vital repair and construction work to ensure NASA’s physical assets are safe, reliable, and mission-ready.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NASA faces at least $1.9 billion in environmental clean up and restoration costs at its far-flung network of centers, an amount that has increased $724 million, or 61 percent, since 2014, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

While five of 14 centers where chemical contamination exists have decreased their cleanup liability, other centers such as Kennedy Space Center, Ames Research Center and the White Sands Test Facilities have seen increased costs from 2014 to 2019.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NASA is planning to spend tens of billions of dollars returning astronauts to the moon and searching for life on Mars and other worlds, but when it comes to cleaning up a toxic mess it created here on Earth, the space agency says it just can’t afford it.

NASA has finalized a plan to conduct the least extensive and least costly cleanup of contaminated soil and water at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in southern California. The space agency tested rocket engines there for decades before closing the facility in 2006.

The decision, which NASA announced in the Federal Register on Friday, has angered local residents who say the space agency is reneging on its commitment to do a full cleanup of the heavily polluted site in Ventura County. They fear toxins left in the soil will leach into local groundwater and endanger the health of residents.

Trump Administration Announces It Is Breaking Santa Susana Field Laboratory Cleanup Agreement

Press Release
Oct. 2, 2020

Committee to Bridge the Gap
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles
Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab
Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition 

The Trump Administration today issued its Record of Decision (ROD) regarding the cleanup of contamination on NASA’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL.) The decision is to violate a legally binding 2010 federal-state agreement that required returning the site to the condition it was in before being polluted. Instead, NASA now plans to walk away from cleaning up the great majority of the contamination, leaving it to continue to migrate offsite. Half a million people live within ten miles of the site.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Although NASA has made some progress in repairing and rebuilding its aging infrastructure, the space agency faces a deferred maintenance backlog of $2.65 billion, according to a new report by the Office of Inspector General (IG).

NASA is one of the biggest managers of property in the federal government, with 5,000 buildings and structures in 14 states. More than 83 percent of the structures are beyond their original design life, the review found.