“Flying in the teeth of White House opposition, the space agency’s congressional supporters have apparently guaranteed a 15 percent budget increase by appending the proposal to a spending measure necessary to keep the government running.” So begins an editorial in today’s Houston Chronicle, congratulating Congress for having “done its part by providing the money” for NASA. The problem is, it doesn’t appear Congress has done anything like what the newspaper thinks it’s done.

The editorial, as well as an article yesterday, claim that Congress has given NASA a 15 percent budget increase by tucking the money into the continuing resolution legislation that the president signed into law yesterday. First, there is no sign of that money in HR 2638, which funds agencies like NASA at FY 2008 levels until early March (or until the passage of an FY09 appropriations bill, whichever comes first); there is an extra $30 million for NASA, but that is for disaster relief. Second, it appears the Chronicle is confusing it with the NASA authorization bill that Congress passed last week, which authorizes $20.2 billion for NASA in FY09, but does not appropriate any funding. (Yesterday’s article does note that the bill “authorizes spending $20.2 billion next year”, but the editorial does not make that distinction.) Contrary to what the Chronicle thinks, Congress has not yet done its part to increase NASA’s funding for FY2009.