Wouldn’t a declaration like that influence donors such as various Political Action Committees to donate to Lampson? That might be the intended audience.

gratuitous disclaimer – I am a Lampson supporter

“Signaling his chairmanship early puts down a marker to NASA, contractors and their families that, ‘If you want to keep your business flowing, you better take care of me,’ ” said Bob Stein, a Rice University political scientist. “Ironically, that’s a page right out of Tom DeLay’s playbook.”

If the House leadership was really serious about Lampson winning DeLay’s old district, they’d promise Lampson a seat on the relevant appropriations subcommittee, like DeLay had. It’s much more difficult to boost NASA’s budget or bring home the bacon from the authorizing committees, even as chair.

FWIW…