Congress

Senate committees get organized; Nelson and Cruz control space subcommittee

Two key Senate committees, Appropriations and Commerce, formally organized their subcommittees this week. As expected, the chair and ranking member of the full Senate Appropriations Committee, Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), respectively, will also serve in the same positions on the Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee, whose jurisdiction includes NASA and NOAA, according to subcommittee assignments announced by the committee on Tuesday. The rest of the CJS subcommittee:

Democrats Republicans
Barbara Mikulski
Patrick Leahy
Dianne Feinstein
Jack Reed
Frank Lautenberg
Mark Pryor
Mary Landrieu
Jeanne Shaheen
Jeff Merkley
Richard Shelby
Mitch McConnell
Lamar Alexander
Susan Collins
Lisa Murkowski
Lindsey Graham
Mark Kirk
John Boozman

On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee held its organizational meeting, announcing members of its various subcommittees, including Science and Space. As expected, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) returns as chairman of the space subcommittee, but will have a new ranking member: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), elected in November to replace the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison. John Boozman (R-AR), who had previously been the ranking member of the subcommittee, is no longer on the Commerce committee; his role was relatively limited in any case, as Hutchison, the ranking member of the full committee in the last Congress, played a bigger role on space issues, working directly with Nelson.

The full subcommittee:

Democrats Republicans
Bill Nelson
Barbara Boxer
Mark Pryor
Amy Klobuchar
Mark Warner
Richard Blumenthal
William Cowan
Ted Cruz
Roger Wicker
Marco Rubio
Dean Heller
Dan Coats
Ron Johnson

The assignments of Nelson and Cruz to be the top members of their parties on the space subcommittee comes just a day after the two clashed in a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting to vote on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be the Secretary of Defense. Will those subcommittee hearings be nearly as exciting?

32 comments to Senate committees get organized; Nelson and Cruz control space subcommittee

  • Jeff, isn’t it unusual for a rookie Senator to be named ranking member? Kinda sounds like Congress wanted to keep the pork flowing to Texas.

    Sorry to see Boozman go, he was relatively sane compared to Hutcheson’s rants.

    • Bennett In Vermont

      I see Boozman as a member of the Senate Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee. Is that a different Boozman? Did he move from the House to the Senate?

      I also see a new member, MY Senator Leahy from Vermont. I see an opportunity here as he has serious seniority in the Senate.

      Time to make a donation and ask for “an audience”.

  • DCSCA

    Cruz will flame out like a pair of SRBs as soon as his two and a half minutes of fame are up.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen…they did but Cruz has stepped on himself rather big time with the Hagel confirmation hearings…RGO

  • josh

    that ted cruz guy is a bad joke. why do these fools keep getting elected?

  • Robert G. Oler

    It will be “entertaining” to see if the Tea Party in space people can get the “tea party” elected people particularly those from “space states” to embrace their “viewpoints” .

    My guess is no…the tea party folks are really not “tea party” people they are just right wing Republicans who really love federal spending in their “home towns”. RGO

  • JimNobles

    .
    “…the tea party folks are really not “tea party” people they are just right wing Republicans who really love federal spending in their “home towns”

    I think that’s true. A lot of people just jump on the bandwagon of whatever political movement seems to have traction at the time. Then if they get elected they go back to their real nature. That’s happened with the Tea Party thing.

    Andrew Gasser and Co. are about the only “Tea Party” people I pay attention to or support.

  • E. P. Grondine

    I’m just wondering who gets the contract as Administrator Bolden’s kleenex and aspirin supplier.

  • Mark Whittington

    Oler, of course, is wrong about Ted Cruz. Cruz has turned out to be on the right side of the Hagel fiasco. As of this writing, the nomination is in big trouble in the Senate largely because of the points Cruz raised about his disturbing relationship with Iran. As for space, I don’t have a direct line into Cruz’s approach to space policy, but considering his hard charging on other issues, whatever it is will make him a majoer player.

    • Robert G. Oler

      As for space, I don’t have a direct line into Cruz’s approach to space policy, but considering his hard charging on other issues, whatever it is will make him a majoer player.>>

      Whittington wrote:

      there is of course hard charging and then there is just wild swinging; and Cruz will likely do on space issues what he has done on the Hagel nomination and everything else; whatever his base wants him to do.

      So that makes it interesting to see if his tea party base includes the tea party in space movement….because if it does then that would be a major change from what you seem to want in human spaceflight.

      More likely Cruz will simply do what most Republican politicans do; support the unchained and unmonitored funneling of federal cash to their favorite corporations. SLS/Orion eat up every two years what the entire Gemini program from Mercury Mark 2 to Gemini 12 did…amazing and there is no flight hardware on the horizon.

      BTW Hagel will be confirmed. they are down to the filibuster which is what losers do when they cannot win and it will be PR nightmare. RGO

  • Mark Whittington

    One possible role for Cruz, by the way, would be to examine Obama commercial space policy with a view of finding our how commercial it can be as it relies on government subsidies. I’ll be he could make people like Bolden and Garver quite uncomfortable under the kleig lights, just as he has Hagel and others so far.

    • Coastal Ron

      Mark Whittington moaned:

      One possible role for Cruz, by the way, would be to examine Obama commercial space policy with a view of finding our how commercial it can be as it relies on government subsidies.

      Companies involved with the Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew programs don’t receive subsidies, not unless you are changing the definition of “subsidy” to include payment for services rendered. If that were the case then every company that deals sells products or services to the government would, by your definition, be receiving “subsidies”. Luckily your definition is wrong.

      However Cruz should look at the $1B/year in real subsidies that ULA, a commercial launch company, receives. He should be asking why the U.S. Government has to provide subsidies to a company that has a virtual monopoly for it’s services – why wouldn’t ULA just raise their prices to cover their costs, instead of requiring a Congressionally approved subsidy?

      And will other launch providers also be receiving $1B/year when they are approved for launching government payloads? That would be a heck of an incentive to ULA competitors.

      Yes, Cruz should look into the subsidies that ULA is receiving.

      • Mark Whittington

        Coastal, they are recieving subsidies to build their spacecraft before any of them even fly. You shouldn’t try to prevaricate like that. SpaceX cannot build the Dragon without billions in government money. Boeing could, but because the market is so thing, will not without the subsidies.

        • Robert G. Oler

          Mark Whittington
          February 14, 2013 at 11:01 pm · Reply

          SpaceX cannot build the Dragon without billions in government money.

          That is an outright lie. There is no truth behind it. SpaceX has not received “Billions” in government money” by any stretch of the definition of multiple billions to mean more then 1.

          You Sir are lying.

          RGO

        • Coastal Ron

          Mark Whittington said:

          they are recieving subsidies to build their spacecraft before any of them even fly.

          My background is in manufacturing, and the contracting mechanism that NASA is using for Commercial Crew is also used by companies that need a contractor to provide a product or service that is unique to only them. That is the situation with NASA and their requirements for Commercial Crew. Under those conditions, the contractors won’t take on the entire risk of creating that customer-specific product or service without the company committing to paying for their effort.

          And that is exactly what the COTS, CCDev and CCiCap programs do, is pay the participating companies for part of their expenses for creating a NASA-specific service. And in no way is paying for services rendered a “subsidy”.

          But if you think it is a subsidy, then please cite a reputable definition for the word “subsidy”, and try to explain how it applies. But since it’s not, I don’t plan on your response…

          • Mark Whittington

            From Investopedia

            “Definition of ‘Subsidy’
            A benefit given by the government to groups or individuals usually in the form of a cash payment or tax reduction. The subsidy is usually given to remove some type of burden and is often considered to be in the interest of the public.”

            Cash payments to companies to build space ships is, by definition, a subsidy.

            • Coastal Ron

              Mark Whittington said:

              From Investopedia

              Why didn’t you provide the WHOLE definition?

              Investopedia explains ‘Subsidy’

              There are many forms of subsidies given out by the government, including welfare payments, housing loans, student loans and farm subsidies. For example, if a domestic industry, like farming, is struggling to survive in a highly competitive international industry with low prices, a government may give cash subsidies to farms so that they can sell at the low market price but still achieve financial gain.

              And you haven’t shown how paying for services rendered is somehow a “subsidy”. You say:

              Cash payments to companies to build space ships is, by definition, a subsidy.

              So $8B in “cash” payments to Lockheed Martin to build the MPCV space ship is, by definition, a subsidy? Funny how you don’t complain about that…

              By your definition any time the government pays for a product or service, then that is a subsidy? Boy, you can tell you’ve never taken a class in economics, because then our whole economy is one GIANT subsidy.

              No Mark, you fail to convince because you fail to understand that a milestone schedule, in which payments are not made until a specified product or service is delivered, is not a subsidy.

              Oh, and when are you going to start complaining about the $8B MPCV subsidy, and $30B SLS subsidy? ;-)

              • Mark Whittington

                But commercial crew is not a solely pay fo rservice system, unless building a space ship is a “service.” The government is not only the sole customer of these “commercial” space ships but, with it providing 90 percent of the cost of developing them, for all intents and purposes the sole investor.

              • @Mark Whittington
                “The government is not only the sole customer of these “commercial” space ships but, with it providing 90 percent of the cost of developing them, for all intents and purposes the sole investor.
                The U.S. government now is the sole customer for Dragon, but at least 7 other governments and a number of corporations have plans for the human-crewed version. Dragon, CST-100 and/or Dream Chaser will be the transportation to Bigelow stations. Once those stations are up, you can expect the currently used cargo version of Dragon to be supplying them. But you continually ignore those inconvenient contradictions to your views.

              • My apologies to Mark Whittington. I was in a hurry and misread his entry. I didn’t see the word “not” in his first sentence. But that does not change the fact that NASA was not the sole investor in Falcon 9/Dragon. But he ignores the following: SpaceX had to invest its own money and successfully fly the hardware before NASA paid them. So Mark is still distorting the facts.

                Funny, he has no problem with Ares and SLS developers being paid for what they do whether they produce flying actually hardware or not.

                One difference between Mark and me is (as many times as I have seen him state erroneous comments and never admit his errors), I will admit it when I am wrong.

              • Coastal Ron

                Mark Whittington said:

                But commercial crew is not a solely pay fo rservice system, unless building a space ship is a “service.”

                Have you even looked at the CCDev and CCiCap milestone schedules? It doesn’t sound like you know what NASA is paying for. NASA is paying these companies to demonstrate that they are capable of performing what NASA wants for crew transportation, not that they know how to build a “space ship”.

                The government is not only the sole customer of these “commercial” space ships but, with it providing 90 percent of the cost of developing them, for all intents and purposes the sole investor.

                I explained this already above, but apparently you are not in any industry that uses the same funding solution. What is your background?

                NASA is developing Commercial Crew for their own use, not anybody else’s, and they don’t want to buy “industry standard” crew transportation services, but services that satisfy NASA’s standards. Why is that? Because there are no “industry standards” for crew transportation to LEO, the field is too new. So instead of having to deal with two or more proprietary standards, NASA imposes it’s own – which, by the way, is not even completely defined.

                That means what Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX are doing is far beyond what they would do for a non-NASA customer. And since NASA is the only customer for NASA-standard crew transportation services, the risk would be that if the companies spent their own money to develop NASA-standard systems, NASA still may not buy transportation services from them. No company in their right mind would risk so much for a government agency, since EVERY government contractor knows that Congress can change their minds on a daily basis.

                However, because Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX will be able to use the same vehicles to offer non-government transportation services (Bigelow for instance), NASA feels that it is appropriate to have CCiCap participants co-invest in the program, which they all are. But NASA is pushing CCiCap for their own use, not anyone else’s.

    • Robert G. Oler

      One possible role for Cruz, by the way, would be to examine Obama commercial space policy with a view of finding our how commercial it can be as it relies on government subsidies”

      Mark Whittington wrote the above.

      My line would be “bring it on”. Bolden should have no trouble showing such questions to be about as stupid as the ones Cruz ask in the Hagel confirmation hearings.

      Commercial crew/cargo have recieved less NASA financial input total then SLS/Orion recieved in 1/2 a year and they have been at this with SLS/Orion for over 25 billion dollars.

      Of course the sinker will come when Bolden points out that SpaceX is doing what its CONTRACT calls for and by the time there are any such hearings will have flown to the space station at least three times…how many times has SLS or Orion flown?

      Maybe Mark, Bolden could quote from our Weekly Standard article, I know he has recently reread the piece.

      Mark, what happened to you? RGO

      • Mark Whittington

        I’m very familiar with the piece we wrote all those years ago. It does not describe commercial crew. If Cruz does to Bolden what he has done to Hagel, Charlie may have to look for another job.

        • Robert G. Oler

          Mark Whittington wrote

          “I’m very familiar with the piece we wrote all those years ago. It does not describe commercial crew.”

          another lie. It does. The Liberty vehicle has some differences from how commercial cargo and crew actually occurred but it is the same notion without a doubt. The main difference is that there has been far more “private money” pumped into the effort

          Cruz lied in the Hagel hearings..Cruz is a liar and a “chickenhawk”, he knows nothing about the military or Chuck Hagel…

          You have pushed two lies this thread. I wrote the piece, Kolker edited it and all you did was ask to have your name on it; and take some money for it.

          I suggest you find a copy. I’ll post it if necessary to prove you are lying RGO

          • Mark Whittington

            Being called a liar by Robert Oler is sort of like being called an adulterer by Bill Clinton. Oler has not credibility, as evidence his mistatements of fact here and in many other venues. You’ve continued to lie about the Weekly Standard piece, which I contributed ideas to, contributing therefore to the writing thereof, and urged that it become the basis of an article to the Weekly Standard. It was you who asked my permission to be included as an author, not the other way around, as you keep mistating. I am published, by the way, in the Washington Post, USA Today, and the LA Times, among other venues, and write about space regularly for Yahoo News. All you are able to do, without my assistence, is rant on other people’s websites. I do not expect you to do the honorable thing and recant and apologize, because I know you to be incapable of that.

          • Mark Whittington

            By the way, here is page three of the piece in question from the Weekly Standard archive. I invite the readers to note who is listed as authors at the bottom of the page and to read the entire piece, whose ideas, especially as of July, 1999, I stand by.

            http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/010/076dnifo.asp?page=3

            • Coastal Ron

              Interesting article, but what are their standards for submission to that magazine? And how did the three of you get anointed as “senior policy analysts”?

              Kind of hit and miss on your arguments too…

              • Mark Whittington

                You’ll have to ask Oler that question as he was the one who interacted with the editors. Considering the hokum he’s telling now, I shudder to think what sort of things he said to them. Also, you have to remember that we developed the piece back in 1999, before COTS and before commercial crew.

  • RocketEconomist327

    Sorry to disappoint you all but Ted Cruz is the real deal. Marco Rubio is the real deal. So is Ron Johnson.

    Honestly – I had to pinch myself and treated myself to a nice 18 year old… bottle of scotch. I couldn’t have asked for any more than this.

    Andrew and TPiS are going to be able to work the senate much more effectively than last session. But even when the cards where stacked against them, somehow TPiS managed to be an influential cog of passing ITAR.

    Industry knows.

    This should be good.

    VR
    RE327

    • Mark Whittington

      Just to be clear to the people who think that Cruz is a moron, he was a debate champ at Princeton and a Harvard Law graduate. He was a distinquished Texas Solictor General before he beat David Dewhurst, a capable man with a lot of name recognition and campaign cash. Underestimate him at your peril.

      • Robert G. Oler

        Just to be clear to the people who think that Cruz is a moron>>

        every senator starts with a presumption of “gravitas” because they do what you suggest; beat capable opponents and rise to be one of the 100 people who have that current title..

        then people like Cruz start opening their mouths…RGO

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