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Build America, Buy America Waivers for Federal Financial Assistance

The Build America, Buy America Act (BABA), enacted as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, establishes a domestic content procurement preference for Federal financial assistance obligated for infrastructure projects. This preference is generally referred to as the Buy America Preference, and it requires that all of the iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in federally funded infrastructure projects are produced in the United States.

A Federal awarding agency may waive the application of the Buy America Preference in any case in which it finds that:

  1. Applying the Buy America Preference would be inconsistent with the public interest (a “public interest waiver”);
  2. Types of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities or of a satisfactory quality (a “nonavailability waiver”); or
  3. The inclusion of iron, steel, manufactured products, or construction materials produced in the United States will increase the cost of the overall infrastructure project by more than 25 percent (an “unreasonable cost waiver”).

NASA does not currently provide financial assistance for covered infrastructure projects and does not anticipate issuing any waivers. However, any waiver NASA intends to issue will be posted to this website for public review and comment for 15 days.