Congress, NASA

Appropriations amendment cuts $126 million from NASA

Members of the House of Representatives narrowly accepted an amendment late Tuesday night cutting NASA’s budget by $126 million. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), transferred $126 million from NASA’s Cross-Agency Support account to the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program in the Department of Justice. The amendment passed 206-204, with 61 Republicans joining 145 Democrats in support of the amendment.

The amendment was one of several debated on the House floor during the day and evening Tuesday that sought to transfer money from NASA, particularly the Cross-Agency Support account, to other programs in the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill. It was, though, the only one to pass. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the CJS appropriations subcommittee, was clearly exasperated by those proposed amendments, noting the Cross-Agency Support account supports many critical NASA activities and is not, as it might appear, to be some kind of slush fund. “I think they need to change the name” of that account, he said at one point in the debate Tuesday evening.

18 comments to Appropriations amendment cuts $126 million from NASA

  • A M Swallow

    I remember a similar amendment last year.

    Time to introduce the reverse, an amendment to transfer money from the police to NASA’s security force.

  • Robert G. Oler

    not the crack NASA hit teams RGO

  • Dark Blue Nine

    Hard-to-justify overhead accounts like Cross-Agency Support wouldn’t be needed if Griffin hadn’t reversed the agency’s nearly complete progress towards full-cost accounting.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “The amendment was one of several debated on the House floor during the day and evening Tuesday that sought to transfer money from NASA, particularly the Cross-Agency Support account, to other programs in the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill. It was, though, the only one to pass.”

    It was also the largest proposed cut by far. The failed amendments would only have cut $17M to $44M each.

    http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/house-cuts-nasa-cross-agency-support-defeats-other-amendments

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi RGO –

    Not NASA’s “Division Five” either…

  • DCSCA

    Appropriations amendment cuts $126 million from NASA

    Not that much in those circles, when you consider Romney set up $100 million trust funds for his kids with ease; Musk dropped a mere $100 million of his own money into Space X and the United States spends $2 billion a week on the war and $500 million a piece on spiffy fighter planes, which per 60 Minutes, pilots aren’t too keen on flying as its 02 system’s a mess.

    @A M Swallow wrote @ May 9th, 2012 at 9:51 am

    “Time to introduce the reverse, an amendment to transfer money from the police to NASA’s security force.” LOL How about $3 billion from the DoD as NASA is part of the ‘national security’ infrasctructure

  • BeanCounterfromDownunder

    DCSCA wrote @ May 9th, 2012 at 5:45 pm

    The U.S. Congress is still having a hard time understanding the money issues that they have. I know you’ve used the term ‘age of austerity’ a bit in the past although I think, a tad premature, but ultimately it will come back to that in some shape or form. Interesting watching the thrashing about over minor amounts that really don’t add up to anything in the long run.
    DoD will get hit hard eventually although all they have to do really is back out of their overseas conflicts a bit. That’ll probably do it for them.

  • Space Cadet

    I have to agree with Dark Blue Nine, abandoning full cost accounting was perhaps the most cowardly and cynical thing I’ve seen NASA do.

  • BeanCounterfromDownunder

    Full cost accounting nor any other type of accounting for that matter will prevent Congressional interference, flagrant waste or managerial ineptitude which is what NASA suffers from, not a lack of money.

  • Space Cadet

    And NASA backed out of full cost accounting when it became clear how much more difficult it would have made it to hide that waste and ineptitude.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “Full cost accounting nor any other type of accounting for that matter will prevent Congressional interference, flagrant waste or managerial ineptitude”

    Full cost accounting won’t stop a shameless congressman from earmarking the heck out of an agency’s budget or an idiot federal manager from making stupid decisions. But it does inform budget and program decisions better than not knowing the true costs of programs.

    Today and for most of NASA’s (and the federal government’s) history, program managers have not known or had control over the actual costs of their programs. They’re able to draw on civil servant resources and engineering pools without booking those costs to their programs. And they contribute on a pro rata basis to field center infrastructure like computational facilities and wind tunnels, regardless of whether their program uses that infrastructure. The only costs program managers have much knowledge and direct control over are the costs of contracted work. That’s about 80% of the NASA budget, which means that the true costs of NASA programs are, on average, 20% higher than advertised. Worse, a significant portion of those budgets go to things that do not contribute materially to the programs — the programs are heavily taxed to support unnecessary facilities, infrastructure, and overhead that they (or no one) uses. If program managers knew and had control over the actual costs of their programs, they could make intelligent decisions and allocate those resources most efficiently to achieve their program’s goals. It wouldn’t stop stupid managers from being stupid, but smart (or average) managers wouldn’t be hamstrung by only having partial knowledge of what resources they’re receiving and what they’re paying for.

    Same goes for earmarks, lazy cuts, and other congressional interference. Grossly expensive earmarks like MPCV/SLS would be that much harder to get passed if their true costs were known and advertised. And cuts to unallocated personnel accounts like Cross-Agency Support would be impossible — Congress would have to cut actual programs, not just engineering and overhead pools.

    “which is what NASA suffers from, not a lack of money.”

    No argument there. But for those who think NASA needs more money, full cost accounting would better justify that need (and better protect the budget NASA has from cuts). Unfortunately, Griffin (and others before and after him) would rather play budget shell games to protect their pet programs and facilities from scrutiny, rather than take the painful steps necessary to manage the true costs of the agency’s programs.

  • BeanCounterfromDownunder

    No still don’t agree. Even knowledge of the full cost of programs is not going to stop the political interference where NASA programs are viewed as jobs programs and therefore the driver is how many jobs can be provided in my space.
    Smart managers will be smart irrespective of the type of accounting system in place. What you’re really asking for is a cultural shift. Simply replacing one type of accounting system with another ignores the people aspects of the problem. Those will still remain.

  • Martijn Meijering

    But it does inform budget and program decisions better than not knowing the true costs of programs.

    That must be why Congress has recently undone O’Keefe’s attempt to introduce full cost accounting. At least, that’s what I understand they did.

  • Space Cadet

    @BeanCounter
    Changing an accounting system is certainly feasible. Changing several thousand people – not so feasible.

  • vulture4

    Full cost accounting was a ridiculous idea. No competent manager could have so little understanding of their organizational budget that they need their whole organization to spend half its workday figuring out how to assign every institutional overhead task to an operational task for them to “understand” the cost of work.

    As for the GOP, it passes a bill that pours billions into Constellation even though there is no possibility of it ever being affordable and slashes commercial programs and demands that competition be eliminated because they are afraid SpaceX might actually work and make SLS/Orion look bad.

  • vulture4

    Oh, and what happened to the GOP claim that it supports NASA and that everything bad is Obama’s fault? The GOP is cutting the NASA budget but putting what’s left into their “big government” project and trying to get rid of any competition.

  • John

    vulture4 wrote,
    “As for the GOP, it passes a bill that pours billions into Constellation…”

    The Constellation program was about pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into SRB development and maintaining that monopoly over liquid fuel booster development for crew and HLV’s. ATK can now use Liberty for commercial purposes all at taxpayer expense.

  • BeanCounterfromDownunder

    Space Cadet wrote @ May 11th, 2012 at 11:26 am

    Agreed but what are you trying to achieve, changing a computer system or changing an organisational culture? They’re both achievable with the ‘right’ approach. Been there, done that.

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