The 13 state Manufacturing Extension Partnerships slated to receive contract renewals from the federal government by July 1 have not received them yet, continuing a pattern since April 2025 where the centers are in limbo until the late renewals are received.

The MEPs affected are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, confirmed Carrie Hines, president and CEO of the American Small Manufacturers Coalition, the association that represents MEPs.

The Centers are operating at risk until they receive their renewals. "Because the renewals haven't been issued, no federal funds have been obligated to those Centers," said Hines in an email. "They don't have any commitment from the Feds they will be reimubursed for allowable expenses because they don't have an award in place."

The nation’s 48 state MEPs plus Puerto Rico are divided into four cohorts, with each cohort having a different renewal date. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, administers the funding. (Alaska and California no longer have MEPs, while Ohio’s MEP funding has been suspended pending a years-long federal audit.)

NIST has not responded to an IndustryWeek request for comment on the funding delays. We will update this story if they respond.

Though it would require an act of Congress, the Trump administration has been attempting to defund the centers on its own since President Donald Trump's first term in office. MEPs have strong bipartisan support in Congress.

MEPs Help Smaller Manufacturers

The Hollister Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a bipartisan-supported program established during the Reagan administration to support small- and medium-sized manufacturers. Congress allocated $175 million in federal funding for the MEP program last year, and state governments and private enterprise are expected to match those funds.

The MEP program encourages collaboration among manufacturers, as well as with public-sector entities like research labs and regional economic development groups to “develop new products and customers, expand and diversify markets, adopt new technologies and enhance value within supply chains.”

By pooling resources, MEPs provide consulting geared to smaller manufacturers, at lower rates than private consulting firms that typically work with larger manufacturers. They also work to encourage technology adoption and tailor it to smaller shops, companies that are often suppliers to larger manufacturers across the United States.

Senators Request Investigation of Department of Commerce’s MEP Practices

On June 25, two U.S. senators, Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) and Gary Peters (D-Mich), sent a letter to Gen. Orice Williams Brown, acting comptroller of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, requesting a “robust investigation” by the GAO on whether Department of Commerce officials have “circumvented or ignored congressional directives on MEP.”

“The MEP Program enhances the competitiveness, productivity, and technological performance of the U.S. manufacturing sector,” wrote the senators in their letter. “However, since Secretary [Howard] Lutnick took control of the Department of Commerce, the Department has put the future of the MEP Program and the services it provides to over 600,000 American manufacturers in deep uncertainty with an ever-shifting chronology of statements, actions, and reversals.”