‘No legitimate rationale’: Lawmakers raise concerns over what NASA won’t say about DOGE

NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building is shown ahead of the launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center in February 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Some House Democratic lawmakers are raising “deep alarm” over Department of Government Efficiency’s interactions with NASA and potential conflicts of interest in a new letter released Friday.

“The lack of transparency surrounding DOGE’s presence and activities within NASA is ominous and unacceptable,” reads the letter, which is signed by three Democrats in leadership positions within the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and dated Feb. 21.

The note, which is addressed to acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, calls out the space agency for failing to answer a list of questions and concerns from lawmakers they sent in a letter earlier this month.

Among the frustrations: NASA has not revealed the name of the DOGE representative that the agency said is embedded at the space agency, described what information that person has had access to, or provided details about what NASA will do to prevent conflicts of interest.

The letter’s signatories are Reps. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee; Valerie Foushee, the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics; and Emilia Sykes, ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.

The back-and-forth between NASA and Democratic lawmakers kicked off with a letter to the space agency on Feb. 6. In it, Foushee and Lofgren spelled out concerns about how NASA would navigate mounting potential ethical conflicts with DOGE, the newly established federal initiative to slash government spending and bureaucracy that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has spearheaded.

Musk’s involvement with DOGE — and the department’s access to data across the federal government — has sparked a number of conflict of interest concerns. But those questions are particularly glaring at NASA, as the space agency holds “proprietary data from NASA contractors, some of whom compete directly with SpaceX,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their Feb. 21 letter.

SpaceX also holds billions of dollars’ worth of contracts with the space agency.

A brief response

The lawmakers appeared frustrated by the brief reply they received to their Feb. 6 letter to Petro. NASA’s response, which is dated Feb. 13, was obtained by CNN.

Signed by Marc Hone, NASA’s acting associate administrator for the agency’s Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, the Feb. 13 note revealed that “DOGE has identified an individual who will be employed by NASA.”

But Hone did not name the individual, nor did he respond to representatives’ questions in the Feb. 6 letter about how the space agency would ensure DOGE personnel did not gain access to or share data in a compromising way.

Rather, Hone said in his letter that the DOGE representative at NASA “will have all necessary access to NASA owned or managed resources as required for his duties, in compliance with all laws and regulations regarding the protection of IT resources and classified information,” adding that NASA intends to comply with all executive orders from the Trump administration.

The lawmakers’ new letter states that NASA had “no legitimate rationale” not to disclose the name of the DOGE representative and said the space agency’s Feb. 13 response “raises more questions than it provides answers.”

They also questioned Hone’s remarks about granting DOGE access to NASA resources, wondering if that was “an admission that (the DOGE employee) will have unrestricted access to proprietary data.”

“If true, this would be a highly disturbing admission,” the letter states. “The agency’s ambiguity on this issue must end immediately.”

NASA provided the following statement to CNN: “The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) sets strict requirements to ensure ethical conduct across federal agencies. NASA faithfully implements OGE’s requirements, applying them to all employees, to address conflicts of interest. All federal employees working with NASA, to include employees supporting Department of Government Efficiency activities, must comply with OGE’s requirements,” a spokesperson for the space agency said via email.

“NASA will continue to adhere to these requirements, along with all laws and regulations regarding the protection of confidential information and information technology.”

The lawmakers also provided a list of questions that they hope NASA will answer by March 7. The representatives had included bulleted inquiries in their Feb. 6 letter, but NASA did not directly address them.

The House members are also seeking clarity about what NASA’s DOGE representative will be doing, stating that “we do not know what this individual’s job will be.” The letter said that the DOGE agent “should be fully prepared to discuss his hiring, mandate, agenda, and activities with our staff and the staff of the (Republican) Majority as well” in a meeting to take place no later than March 14.

A DOGE firewall?

At the sidelines of the Commercial Space Conference in Washington, D.C., last week, CNN asked Petro if she were concerned about potential conflicts of interest with DOGE.

She responded that she was not because the space agency has “very strict” policies in place to prevent impropriety.

“Any person who is coming in we will check out their conflicts of interest and make sure they don’t have any conflicts of interest with any of the companies that we work with,” Petro said.

When asked who at NASA would be in charge of reviewing DOGE activity and hires for unethical overlaps, Petro responded it would be the space agency’s legal office. In their Friday letter, the Democratic lawmakers called for “elaboration” and expressed concern that “the agency failed to disclose the existence of this process to the Committee before unveiling it to the media.”

It’s unclear how exactly the legal office — or NASA’s general counsel — has been or will be reviewing such concerns, and what if any involvement NASA’s Ethics Program will play, according to the Feb. 21 letter.

“The Committee cannot conduct proper oversight of the agency while lacking the most basic information about how DOGE will operate inside NASA,” the letter reads.

Article written by Jackie Wattles.