Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has been one of the members of Congress calling on NASA and the White House to fire NASA inspector general Robert Cobb. Today Nelson released a letter to Mike Griffin calling not only for Cobb’s dismissal, but also NASA general counsel Mike Wholley. Wholley raised the ire of Nelson and some other members of Congress when they learned that he made the determination that a video recording of a meeting that features Griffin, Cobb, and a number of other NASA employees. “Counsel Wholley’s actions are troubling,” Nelson writes, although admitting that what Wholley did wasn’t necessarily wrong. “Even if Wholley’s motives were innocuous, his actions create serious appearance problems for the agency and distract from our common goal of building support for NASA’s mission.”
Nelson also complains that Wholley had a “close working relationship” with Cobb, undermining the independence that the inspector general’s office is supposed to have from the rest of NASA. Also, Nelson complained that Wholley conducted his own “evaluation of the allegations and evidence” against Cobb after the Integrity Committee of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency completed its own work. Those factors were enough for Nelson to “recommend that you [Griffin] require Counsel Wholley’s resignation as well.”
Regardless of what you think of the Cobb affair, there’s one point in Nelson’s letter that’s hard to disagree with: “I am increasingly convinced that this situation is an unnecessary distraction from NASA’s real challenges.” The only problem is that Griffin is unlikely to agree to Nelson’s solution to end this distraction.
Update: Florida Today reports that Griffin admits that destroying the recording was “a mistake”, although that admission alone seems unlikely to mollify Nelson.
Update: Florida Today reports that Griffin admits that destroying the recording was “a mistakeâ€, although that admission alone seems unlikely to mollify Nelson.
So, how are these guys going to destroy the Ares I?
Shredding some meeting DVDs is a minor ‘mistake’ compared to the mistakes his band of thugs has been making since April 15, 2005.
What we have here is a full blown conspiracy in the very beginnings of a coverup. It’s well past time to ‘nip this thing in the bud’.
What a stupid waste of precious Congressional time for NASA and of taxpayer money. It’s far beneath the attention of the Senate to call for the resignation of an agency IG just for swearing at employees and potential appearances of impropriety — especially when the commission investigating the incidents found no actual wrongdoing. And it’s just plain idiotic to call for the resignation of an agency GC for doing his job — protecting the agency and agency head — which involves both records management and communication with the IG.
Senator Nelson is like a guard dog growling at shadows when the actual home invaders are taking the widescreen TV, family jewels, and safe out the front door. NASA’s programs, budget, and management are full of a dozen other substantive and actual problems that are way, way more important and deserving of his and his staff’s attention than this petty schlock. If Nelson can’t see or focus on the real issues at NASA, then he needs to be moved out of the committee by the Senate leadership, or his NASA constituents need to vote him out of office at the next opportunity.
It’s called corruption and cronyism, and he violated the fundamental principles of his office. Really, get a grip on reality here, what we have is an administration that has been nothing but a complete train wreck since day one. We’re talking about NASA/ATK/IG cronyism and nepotism, and outright engineering and fiscal fraud, outright lies, which have demonstrably delivered to us a dysfunctional space exploration program.
It’s over. We are going to eviscerate them by investigation. Griffin, Dittemore, Horowitz and Cobb et al. are going down, just as assuredly as are Gonzales and Wolfowitz, and ultimately, Bush and Cheney. We are just trying to prevent them from any further gutting of American finances and prestige and infrastructure, if that is indeed possible. The damage here is near total, hail storms and train wrecks notwithstanding. This NASA administration and its engineering staff has absolutely no credibility anymore.
VSE and ESAS are on the chopping block, and if you don’t believe it, you are going to be left in the dust, eating dust. Get used to it. We’re aren’t going to quit poking these people with pointy sticks, ever, until they retire to the jungles of Paraguay.
“It’s called corruption and cronyism,”
No one — not even Nelson — has levelled such charges against the IG or GC.
“and he violated the fundamental principles of his office.”
He who? Cobb or Wholley?
“Griffin, Dittemore, Horowitz and Cobb et al. are going down”
While I appreciate the venom for Ares 1/Orion and ESAS, I don’t see how we can put Cobb and Wholley in the same bucket as Griffin, Horowitz, and Dittemore. The former are lawyers who have no say in any decisions regarding how the VSE has been implemented — and only one of which has demonstrated some bad judgement and neither of which has been formally charged with any actual wrongdoing. The latter are top NASA managers and engineers who are ultimately responsible for how the VSE has been implemented — any who have shown extremely poor judgement in those implementation decisions (at least in my opinion). They’re just not the same thing — they’re two different games.
“just as assuredly as are Gonzales and Wolfowitz, and ultimately, Bush and Cheney”
Again, while I appreciate the venom for the Bush Administration’s dirty political games, I don’t see how we can put Cobb and Wholley in the same bucket as a Gonzales or Cheney. The former cussed out an employee and had too many lunches with the NASA Administrator. The latter subverted some of the fundamental underpinnings of our democratic processes. The levels of wrongdoing are in totally different leagues.
What, Mr. Anon, do you really expect Congress to do in terms of the budget? It seems to me that Bush hasn’t asked for nearly enough money to adequately fund the agency and the program he championed in particular. And if he’s not going to really get behind this the way he needs to, it’s not going to happen.
Congress seldom seems to have the power or will to force any president to spend more on NASA than he wants to spend. They can trim around the edges, add a bit here and there, fence off certain programs, and put in some earmarks, but for the most part, the president gets more or less what he wants on this. Congress saves its energy and political capital for things that matter a lot more.
Maybe I’m wrong on this. If so, point out some specifics. I’m willing to listen.
I don’t agree with your dismissal of the seriousness of the Cobb affair. I think it’s part of a larger pattern involving Bush’s administration and oversight of government. But, I don’t know for sure. I look forward to hearings to learn more. I’d also like to read the full report. Have they released it?
“What, Mr. Anon, do you really expect Congress to do in terms of the budget… Congress seldom seems to have the power or will to force any president to spend more on NASA than he wants to spend.”
I agree that there’s only a small chance that Congress could achieve a large increase over the President’s request for NASA’s FY08 budget. But there’s no chance in hell that’s going to happen if the few Congressmen that actually care about NASA (like Nelson) are spending their limited time persecuting mid-level government lawyers with no charges of substantive wrongdoing
Nelson and other “NASA” congressmen and their staffs should be banding together, developing a coherent budget and legislative strategy, and implementing it. Instead, they’re wasting their limited “NASA” time:
– Making empty calls for a space summit that are not followed up on (Mikulski);
– Not attending their own hearings about the coming Shuttle workforce transition and other issues that directly affect their NASA center workforce (Hutchison);
– Persecuting mid-level government lawyers with no charges of substantive wrongdoing (Nelson and Miller);
– Making shrill partisan attacks and proposing amendments that are useless to NASA’s budget in non-relevant bills (Weldon); and
– Securing small amounts of spending for purely parochial purposes to support a failed program office with no planned purpose at a center with a very poor track record in that programmatic area (Shelby).
NASA is probably facing the biggest legislative challenge it’s had since the year before the Ruskies were brought into the ISS partnership, and Congress is either AWOL and missing in action or pursuing petty tangents down blind alleys. This situation is a sad, sad joke, and I, for one, expect much better for my tax dollars and from my elected representatives.
But even if we totally dismiss the possibility that NASA’s topline budget can be significantly increased (which is the most realistic scenario), NASA is still woefully in need of serious debate in the new Congress about its programmatic direction and priorities. In fact, without a major budgetary increase, such a substantive debate is even more important. Within a level budget, are the decisions being made by NASA senior management and the White House the right ones? Specifically, is:
– pushing human (and nearly all robotic) lunar exploration back over the horizon,
– slashing the number of new space science missions by two-thirds,
– cutting aeronautics research by one-third,
– abandoning the minimal Earth science research necessary to monitor global warming, and
– eliminating the outyear budget for commercial human space flight services;
all worth the development of a uselessly duplicative LEO launch vehicle and needlessly large human capsule that won’t even shrink the Shuttle retirement gap?
If not, what is the right balance between these program areas and what is the right path programmatically for the human space flight program?
Even if Congress can’t live up to its funding responsibilities, or can’t even make hard decisions about NASA program priorities, it still has a responsibility to substantively debate these pressing issues. And, for all intents and purposes, that debate is practically absent in today’s Congress. Gridlock happens, but when Congress fails to govern, the institution still needs to go through the motions of substantive debate.
“I don’t agree with your dismissal of the seriousness of the Cobb affair. I think it’s part of a larger pattern involving Bush’s administration and oversight of government. But, I don’t know for sure. I look forward to hearings to learn more. I’d also like to read the full report. Have they released it?”
No, the full report is not out (to my knowledge), but if you read through the report summary, it goes into detail about Cobb’s worst offenses, which, again, amount to swearing at another lawyer and having a few too many lunches with the prior Administrator. The panel that did the investigation and created the report clearly states that there is no actual wrongdoing on Cobb’s part — only the potential appearance of such — and does not recommend Cobb’s dismissal.
I’m not arguing that Cobb should not be removed from his position. He probably is a jerk personally and probably doesn’t show enough professional discretion for the position of IG. But that’s a matter to be decided by Cobb’s bosses, not the U.S. Senate.
The problem I have is why in heck the nation’s highest legislative body is spending any time on this at all. There’s no charges of actual wrongdoing, there’s practically no political capital to be gained by further persecution, and what offenses do exist are far beneath the attention of the Senate.
Governance is all about setting priorities and using your limited executive or legislative power and time to work those priorities. And in the case of NASA, there are much, much more important and pressing priorities. IG Cobb just ain’t AG Gonzales or anywhere close, in terms of the importance of their positions, the potential political capital to be gained by persecuting them, or the seriousness of their offenses.
Time for Nelson and Miller to let this one go (or refer it to another committee overseeing IGs and such) and get their focus back on the important issues of substance for the nation’s civil space programs.
I do put Cobb and Wholley in the league of Dick and George. America is confronted with the biggest mass extinction and climate change event in geological history, and the NASA Inspector General and Attorney are the only people in NASA with the abilities and authority to do anything about it, since the Administrator and his ATK cronies took all of the engineers and congress itself out of the loop, to say nothing about shafting the American people.
NASA and NOAA gagged the scientists. This happened on their watch. So I add Conrad Lautenbacher, Jack Kelly and John Marburger to the list, plus certainly Max Mayfield, who is an outright liar. These people have corrupted our scientific institutions, and I take grave issue with you, an anonymous poster, apologizing for them in public. The fact that you choose to do so anonymously is indicative of a severe problem in America, and I for one am certainly not going to remain silent about it anymore.
What we have here is fraud, corruption, cronyism, lying and incompetence at the highest levels of government across the board at all of our scientific institutions. It’s time to put an end to it, time to call for investigations, and well past time to fire the principles. Screw you, anonymous. You are the problem with America.
“America is confronted with the biggest mass extinction and climate change event in geological history, and the NASA Inspector General and Attorney are the only people in NASA with the abilities and authority to do anything about it”
You misunderstand the roles of the IG and the GC in federal agencies. IGs are responsible for investigating crimes committed by individuals or their agency that break the law. GCs are responsible for ensuring that individuals and their agencies don’t commit crimes and break the law to begin with. Neither has much, if anything, to do with scientific integrity or how science gets communicated to the public.
Chief scientists and their staffs at R&D agencies are responsible for maintaining scientific integrity and accurately communicating science to the public and decisionmakers, not the GC or IG lawyers. Unfortunately, Griffin eliminated the position of chief scientist early in his tenure so there was no watchdog for the earth scientists to run to when the political appointees in NASA public affairs ran amok.
“NASA and NOAA gagged the scientists. This happened on their watch. So I add Conrad Lautenbacher, Jack Kelly and John Marburger to the list, plus certainly Max Mayfield, who is an outright liar. These people have corrupted our scientific institutions,”
I agree — there’s been a terrible abuse of the scientific process for political gain by the Bush Administration (and there’s other examples besides the climate coverup).
But the climate coverup has nothing to do with Cobb’s swearing at employees and meetings with O’Keefe or Wholley’s ordering a recorded discussion between Cobb and Griffin to be destroyed. The connection you’re drawing simply doesn’t exist.
“and I take grave issue with you, an anonymous poster”
Mr. Faust has made clear several times in this forum that anonymous posts are welcome and informative and that posters should not be attacked for having to maintain their anonymity. In our day jobs, some of us are very close to the political and policy processes here in DC and simply could not participate in this forum any other way.
“apologizing for them in public.”
I’ve made clear in earlier posts that I’m not apologizing for Cobb or Wholley. In fact, I just wrote above that:
“I’m not arguing that Cobb should not be removed from his position. He probably is a jerk personally and probably doesn’t show enough professional discretion for the position of IG.”
I also stated:
“The problem I have is why in heck the nation’s highest legislative body is spending any time on this at all.”
My argument is not the Cobb or Wholley are free of blame. My argument is that what they’ve done does not rise to the level of the U.S. Senate and that the Senate has more important things to focus on at NASA (such as the actual climate coverup). Please read my posts more carefully before engaging in a line of attack that does not respond to or reflect what I actually said.
“The fact that you choose to do so anonymously”
Again, Mr. Faust has made clear several times in this forum that anonymous posts are welcome and informative and that posters should not be attacked for having to maintain their anonymity.
Per my comments above regarding the climate coverup and Nelson’s actions regarding the NASA IG and GC, I am neither a Republican/White House nor a Democrat/Congressional mouthpiece. At least off-the-job and in this forum, I am non-partisan and call them like I see them.
“What we have here is fraud, corruption, cronyism, lying and incompetence at the highest levels of government across the board at all of our scientific institutions. It’s time to put an end to it, time to call for investigations, and well past time to fire the principles.”
Again, on the climate coverup and other issues, I’d agree with that statement. But it has no relevance to the U.S. Senate’s persecution of the NASA IG and GC.
“Screw you, anonymous.”
Please, no personal or profane attacks. I’ve made none against you. Argue the facts and opinions, not me.
Feel free to respond, but I will not be responding to any further posts from you (Mr. Elifritz) in this thread.
It’s probably time to close this thread. I don’t know if it’s possible to ban posters, but Mr. Faust may want to look into the possibility.
I don’t know if it’s possible to ban posters, but Mr. Faust may want to look into the possibility.
And of course, that will shut down dissent in America, and investigation of fraud, incompetence, nepotism and cronyism, and as far as I’m concerned – CRIMINAL behavior of those in charge of our formerly prestigious national science institutions, NOAA, NASA and the NWS.
Carbon dioxide is at 383 ppm and rising at a rate of 2 ppm/year, perchlorate contamination is extreme and pervasive across the biosphere, Arctic sea ice will be gone in decades, and NOAA and NASA has GAGGED its scientists, and the NASA IG is out playing golf with the administrator, and you, anonymous, are apologizing for the people in charge of our science institutions that have done nothing to help solve the problems, and done everything to cover up the problems. You are part of the problem, you are not part of the solution. Go ahead, gag me. I’m not going away, and neither are the problems.. You should be ashamed, but you’re not, that ample enough demonstration of your character for me. If you ignore the problems, they’ll only get worse.
In the past I’ve had to deal with people like Dennis Wingo who simply lied about the problems, but science now is sophisticated enough that it’s no longer possible to lie. Now I’m going after the ignorant. Believe me, it’s in your best interests.