The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made a number of advances in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and “environmental justice” despite recently laying off staff and canceling its space program due to budget shortfalls. He is putting up a million dollar prize.

Since 2020, NASA has allocated about $10 million to pay for dozens of grants and contracts aimed at advancing some element of environmental justice or DEI, according to federal spending records. show. The agency is missing billions of dollars. funding necessary to complete the current mission, was fired Hundreds of people are working on Mars missions, citing budget concerns, and there may not be enough funding. maintain It’s a multibillion-dollar space telescope, according to multiple reports in the Washington Post.

“The environmental justice movement is focused on ensuring that communities are equitably protected from natural and man-made environmental hazards.” NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice webpage read. “This embodies the principle that all communities should be heard and represented in decision-making.” (Related: FEMA aids millions to promote ‘equity’ during hurricane season, prioritizing ‘underserved communities’)

Much of NASA’s grant spending went to universities to support environmental justice research in urban areas and other places with high concentrations of racial minorities. For example, officials approved $150,000 in funding to Columbia University to combine “Earth observation and socio-economic data” to enable students to conduct environmental justice work in New York City, records state. show.

Another grant, this time worth $250,000, was awarded to Los Angeles as part of NASA’s Predictive Environmental Analysis and Community Engagement for Equity and Environmental Justice (PEACE) program. Hit Federal records. To correct the observation that “people of color often have greater exposure to air pollutants,” NASA peace program It paid the city to provide pollution data to residents in a way that “works across community and cultural differences to analyze, engage, and respond to environmental justice needs, among other things.”

Federal records show NASA has set aside more than $5 million for such environmental justice grants since 2022.

In addition to the approximately 530 people who work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in February, NASA paid millions of dollars to fund environmental justice initiatives, plus an additional 8% of its workforce. Forty contractors were laid off, the Post reported. Many of the laid-off workers were part of the Mars Sample Return Program, which was studying evidence of possible past life on Mars.

While funding for Mars research and major space telescopes is lacking, NASA is on record as spending millions of dollars to incorporate DEI into both its own organizational structure and the broader scientific community. Shown.

For example, in 2023, NASA approved a contract worth about $2.9 million to a consulting firm to “embed and deeply ingrain DEI” into the “culture” of the Space Mission Directorate. According to For expense records. NASA assigned An additional $900,000 will be donated to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020 to increase diversity in space mission leadership.

NASA also donated thousands of dollars to the Southeastern University Research Association to make the agency’s heliophysics materials “more relevant and open to Latinx and Native American communities,” records show. be. show. agency paid We will donate tens of thousands more dollars to the Oceanographic Society to incorporate DEI into marine science.

The language NASA uses to describe its environmental justice programs mirrors the language used in the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice40 initiative. give instructions that 40% Beneficiaries of federal climate and environmental programs must be from “underserved communities.” later White House Environmental Justice Advisory Committee defined An “underserved community” is a “majority minority” community. NASA’s efforts are also covered by the Justice40 initiative. According to on government documents.

NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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