The Senate earlier today approved an amendment to an appropriations bill that would add $1 billion to NASA’s FY2008 budget. The amendment, popularly known as the “Mikulski Miracle” after its sponsor, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), was passed by the Senate on a voice vote. (According to Space News (sub. required), the Senate elected to approve the amendment without a roll call because the amendment had attracted a number of co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, ranging from Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who has worked with Mikulski on the amendment since a similar effort last year, to Hillary Clinton (D-NY).) The Senate has yet to approve the appropriations bill itself, and may not get to it until after a weeklong recess that begins after tomorrow.
Approval of the measure is a big step forward in helping remove some of the fiscal pressures on NASA, but it’s hardly the last step. The Senate’s version of the bill has to be reconciled with the House version, which does not have the extra $1 billion; the final version may later face a presidential veto.
Go Hillary! First an excellent speech, and now this.
— Donald
I rather hope that certasn people who have suggested that such an event could not possibly happen will now eat some crow. Kudos to Mikulski and Hutchison for their hard work.
I did notice that Hillary signed on as a cosponser. Hard to reconcile that with her ambiguous “support” in her science agenda, but then she would not be the first pol to want to have it both ways,
I don’t mean to be a party-pooper, but the passage of this amendment has to be examined within the context of what’s happening with all the appropriations bills right now. Since they all face veto threats, all sorts of crazy spending is being proposed right now. It’s a cheap way for any congressman from either side of the aisle to show support and score political points without having to do any heavy lifting or make any real commitments.
One of two things will happen after the vetos: either fiscal reality will set in and more fiscally conservative bills will get passed, or FY08 will devolve into another set of continuing resolutions like FY07 did. Neither scenario bodes well for NASA spending, especially planned increases in exploration, or for plus-ups of this magnitude.
FWIW..
Anonymous is absolutely right. What you’re seeing is classical kabuki theater on the part of the good congressmembers.
I’m very sure, just looking at some of the coments here, that many people are just not getting what a historic event this is. The amendment was passed by unanimous consent, which means for those who are a little uneducated about how things work in Washington that not one Senator objected to it. Not one conservative deficit hawk. Not one liberal let’s defund NASA and spend the money on social programs. That would seem to indicate a support for the exploration program that is both wide and deep and perhaps unstoppable.
OK, here is another party pooper
I would like to see an analysis of what costs are covered and which ones would NOT be covered. One Billion Dollars sounds like a lot, but NASA is way behind on facilities maintenance, space science, etc.
Unfortunately, even a billion dollars will disappear into NASA’s accounts in a hurry. But can we fund all of the deficits that they have piled up?
It would be great if the billion dollars came along with a requirement to rationally examine their programs and only attempt those things that could be paid for, given the current fiscal climate.
I hope that none of this money will be used to purchase additional holes that would need to be filled with more money later.
Charles
“I’m very sure, just looking at some of the coments here, that many people are just not getting what a historic event this is. The amendment was passed by unanimous consent, which means for those who are a little uneducated about how things work in Washington that not one Senator objected to it. Not one conservative deficit hawk.”
Actually, in this case, what a unanimous consent agreement means is that no Senator objected — either because they didn’t care or because they just weren’t paying attention — to a procedural deviation that allowed the Senate to forgo a vote on the amendment. See:
http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/unanimous_consent.htm.
This is not the same thing — not by a long stretch — as a unanimous vote. It does not mean that the Senate held a vote and all 100 Senators voted for the amendment.
“That would seem to indicate a support for the exploration program that is both wide and deep and perhaps unstoppable.”
No vote was held, so it can’t be interpreted as a positive or definitive indication of support. At best, we can say no Senator cared enough to object. More likely, some, maybe even most, of the Senate just wasn’t paying attention. (Although those Senators that signed letters of support for the amendment — Mikulski, Hutchison, Clinton — obviously did support it.)
And again, the passage of this amendment has to be examined within the context of the President’s veto threats on all of these bills. None of these bills are really worth the paper they’re being printed on right now, which is probably the reason why no Senator cared enough to object or pay attention to the passage of the amendment.
FWIW…
“Unfortunately, even a billion dollars will disappear into NASA’s accounts in a hurry.”
Yes, the tough reality is that — at a total development cost somewhere between $20 and 30 billion, even a billion might not be enough to accelerate Ares I/Orion by a single year, if it was all spent in Constellation.
That amount could do wonders in other parts of NASA’s budget — which I imagine is what Mikulski has in mind — but it’s not going to fundamentally fix the post-Shuttle gap or other human space flight problems.
FWIW…
My guess on Ms. Clinton’s thinking is that it’s a pollitically cheap way to sound a little less liberal. She can say to liberal technocrats like me and a lot of the Silicon Valley crowd that, see, she’s not opposed to high technology — and she can keep a lot of NASA employees and their political dependents in southern states a little less unhappy. All this, without making any promises that would bust future natuional budgets (which is quite different from the NASA budget, which might well get busted).
— Donald
[…] pass many of its appropriations bills, leading to the year-long continuing resolution. Last year, the Senate approved the additional funding, but the money was lost in conference committee. Will the third time be the charm for Mikulski and […]