The Labor Department will provide $15 million in grants to help contract workers on the space shuttle program find new jobs. The last shuttle flight is scheduled for this fall.

The grants will go to 3,200 employees who work primarily for Boeing, ASRC Aerospace Corp. and United Space Alliance at Cape Canaveral, FL.

Labor estimates as many as 20,000 contract employees could be laid off when the shuttle program closes up shop. President Obama previously announced the government will provide $40 million in job training funds for them.

Three senators have introduced a bill to train contracting officers about small business set-aside programs. The Small Business Training in Federal Contracting Certification Act, S. 3444, would direct the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to establish a certification program for small business training.

“Our legislation would help the government to meet or exceed its 23% statutory contracting goal for small businesses, which it has yet to achieve,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, ranking member of the Small Business Committee, said in a statement. Cosponsors of the bill are committee chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-LA, and Ben Cardin, D-MD.

Investigations by GSA’s inspector general have resulted in criminal charges against nearly two dozen people over the first six months of this year—for misuse of their government fleet charge cards.

The newspaper Federal Times reported that most of those who were prosecuted were buying thousands of dollars worth of gasoline and, in some instances, reselling it.

In one case a contractor and his brother rang up more than $90,000 in fraudulent charges on 15 different fuel cards. The contractor oversaw government vehicles assigned to an Army recruiting battalion in Michigan. Both men were sentenced to prison.

SBA has granted a waiver of the nonmanufacturer rule for Liquid Propane Gas. The agency says no small business manufacturers are supplying this class of product to the government.

The waiver is effective June 23.

SBA is proposing the grant a class waiver of the nonmanufacturer rule for Configured Tape Library Storage Equipment, Product Service Code 7025 Automated Data Processing (ADP) Input/Output and Storage Devices, 7035 ADP Support Equipment, and 7045 ADP Supplies, under the (NAICS) code 334112 (Computer Storage Device Manufacturing). The agency says it believes that no small business manufacturers supply these classes of products to the government.

Comments are due June 22.