As part of a rules package passed by the House yesterday, the House Science Committee has been renamed the Science and Technology Committee. Committee chairman Bart Gordon announced the change, as well as a redesigned web site (note the new URL) that looks essentially the same as the site for the committee’s Democratic Caucus in the previous Congress (artifacts of which can be seen in some of the site’s boilerplate, particularly on the title and footer of the press release page.) Among the committee’s priorities, Gordon said, will be “maximizing the effectiveness of the nation’s civil and commercial space and aeronautics programs”. Subcommittee assignments for the Science and Technology Committee have not been announced yet, and will be made in the next few weeks, along with a “housekeeping” markup session to reapprove noncontroversial legislation that the committee approved in the last Congress but failed to make it completely through the House and Senate.
Ahh, googlebombers selling idiots products that will give them heart valve diseases. Don’t you just love social darwinism.
As for Gordon “maximizing the effectiveness of the nation’s civil and commercial space and aeronautics programs”, I don’t buy it. He simply doesn’t have the guts to kill Ares and demand that NASA follow the “persue commercial opportunities for providing transportation” provision of VSE to the letter.
There is a political downside for Bart Gordon to attack one of the top priority programs of MSFC.
I believe that the southern part of Bart Gordon’s TN district serves as a bedroom community for some people who work in a certain northern AL town. The name of that town is Huntsville.
I may be wrong. I request that somebody, who knows that region better, confirm or correct this information.
– Al