Implementation of the Administrative False Claims Act

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION <CFR>14 CFR Part 1264</CFR> <RIN>RIN 2700-AE79</RIN> <DEPDOC>[NASA Document Number: NASA-25-034; NASA Docket Number: NASA-2025-0069]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Implementation of the Administrative False Claims Act</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is proposing to amend its regulations in order to fully implement the Administrative False Claims Act (AFCA), as amended by the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. This updated rule establishes clear and comprehensive administrative procedures for investigating, evaluating, and imposing civil penalties and monetary assessments on individuals or entities that knowingly make, submit, or present false claims, representations, or misleading statements to NASA. The AFCA offers a streamlined, agency-level enforcement remedy that enables NASA to more effectively address smaller, lower-dollar fraud cases, safeguard critical Federal funds, and strongly deter fraudulent conduct. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> NASA must receive comments on or before February 13, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by RIN 2700-AE79 through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. All comments received will be posted without change to the Federal eRulemaking Portal; including any personal information provided. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Robert Vogt, 202-763-3659, <E T="03">robert.j.vogt@nasa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> On December 23, 2024, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025 NDAA) (Pub. L. 118-159) was signed into law. Under section 5203, the FY 2025 NDAA revitalizes an existing but underutilized fraud enforcement mechanism: the Administrative False Claims Act of 2023 (AFCA). This Act, previously known as the Program Fraud Civil Remedies Act of 1986, offers a streamlined administrative remedy for addressing false claims and statements that the Department of Justice (DOJ) opts not to prosecute. The new statute requires amendment to the NASA's regulations at 14 CFR 1264 within 180 days of enactment. The AFCA complements the more widely known and widely used civil False Claims Act by providing an administrative process by which Federal executive branch agencies can address relatively small dollar value false claims that might not warrant the attention of the DOJ. The liability provisions of the AFCA remain closely modeled on those in the False Claims Act. The principal differences between the False Claims Act and the AFCA are that the AFCA does not include a qui tam enforcement mechanism, covers false written statements even in the absence of a claim, and provides for administrative rather than judicial resolution. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Regulatory Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Executive Order (E.O.) 12866—Regulatory Planning and Review, E.O. 13563—Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, and E.O. 14192—Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation</HD> E.O.s 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). E.O. 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. This rule is a significant regulatory action under E.O. 12866. This rule is expected to be an E.O. 14192 deregulatory action. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E.O. 13132—Federalism</HD> E.O. 13132 requires agencies to ensure meaningful and timely input by state and local officials in the development of regulatory policies that may have a substantial, direct effect on the states, on the relationship between the National Government and the states, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. This action has been analyzed in accordance with the principles and criteria contained in the order, and NASA has determined that this action will not have a substantial direct effect or federalism implications on the states and would not preempt any state law or regulation or affect the states' ability to discharge traditional state governmental functions. Therefore, consultation with the states is not necessary. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E.O. 13175—Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments</HD> This final rule has been analyzed in accordance with the principles and criteria contained in E.O. 13175. NASA has determined that the removal of Subpart 1204.3 does not significantly or uniquely affect the communities of the Indian tribal governments or impose substantial direct compliance costs on them; the funding and consultation requirements of E.O. 13175 do not apply. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> Because no notice of proposed rulemaking is required, the Regulatory Flexibility Act does not require an initial or final regulatory flexibility analysis. <SU>1</SU> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> No collections of information pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act are contained in the final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</HD> This rule will not impose a Federal mandate that may result in the expenditure by state, local, and tribal governments, in the aggregate, or by the private sector, of $100 million or more in any one year. <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects 14 CFR Part 1264</HD> Administrative practice and procedure; Claims; Fraud. </LSTSUB> For the reasons set forth in the preamble, NASA proposes to amend 14 CFR part 1264 as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">PART 1264—IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE FALSE CLAIMS ACT</HD> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="1264"> 1. The authority citation for part 1264 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 31 U.S.C. 3809, 51 U.S.C. 20113(a). </REGTEXT> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="1264"> 2. In § 1264.100, revise paragraphs (a) to read as follows: </REGTEXT> <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 1264.100 </SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Basis and purpose.</SUBJECT> (a) <E T="03">Basis.</E> This part implements the Administrative False Claims Act, Public Law 99-509, sections 6101-6104, 100 Stat. 1874 (October 1986), amended Public Law 118-159, December 23, 2024, 138 Stat, 2440, to be codified at 31 U.S.C. 3801-3812. 31 U.S.C. 3809 of the statute requires each authority head to promulgate regulations necessary to implement the provisions of the statute. <STARS/> </SECTION> <REGTEXT TITLE="14" PART="1264"> 3. In § 1264.101, amend paragraphs (e)(2)(iii), (g), (l), (m), (p), (r), to read as follows: </REGTEXT> <SECTION> <SECTNO>§ 1264.101</SECTNO> <SUBJECT>Definitions. </SUBJECT> <STARS/> (e) * * * (3) Made to the authority which has the effect of concealing or improperly avoiding or decreasing an obligation to pay, transmit or account for property, services, or money to the authority. <STARS/> (g) <E T="03">Consent hearing</E> means that the authority and the defendant consent, as provided in § 1264.106(c), that the presiding officer be the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA). The Chairperson may designate another administrative judge of the CBCA as presiding officer in a consent hearing. <STARS/> (l) <E T="03">Investigating official</E> means the NASA Inspector General, or designee who is serving in a position for which the rate of basic pay, is not less than the minimum rate of basic pay for the grade GS-16 (under the General Schedule). (m) <E T="03">Knows or has reason to know,</E> for purposes of establishing liability, means that a person: (1) Has actual knowledge that the claim or statement is false, fictitious, or fraudulent; (2) Acts in deliberate ignorance of the truth or falsity of the claim or statement; or (3) Acts in reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the claim or statement and no proof of specific intent to defraud is required. <STARS/> (p) <E T="03">Presiding officer,</E> except as provided for pursuant to consent trial notice, means (1) In the case of an authority to which the provisions of subchapter II of chapter 5 of title 5 apply, an ALJ appointed in the authority pursuant to section 3105 of such title or detailed to the authority pursuant to section 3344 of such title. (2) If the authority is not subject to the provisions of Subchapter II of Chapter 5, Title 5, U.S.C. an officer or employee of the Authority who— (i) Is appointed by the Authority head to conduct hearings under this part; (ii) Is assigned to cases in rotation so far as practicable; (iii) May not perform duties inconsistent with the duties and responsibilities of a presiding officer. (iv) Is entitled to pay prescribed by the Office of Personnel Management independently of ratings and recommendations made by the authority and in accordance with Chapter 51 Title 5 and Subchapter III of Chapter 53 of Title 5; (v) Is not subject to performance appraisal pursuant to Chapter 43 of Title 5; and (vi) May be removed, suspended, furloughed, or reduced in grade or pay only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing by such Board. (3) A member of the board of contract appeals pursuant to section 7105 of title 41, if the Authority does not employ an available presiding office ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━