Congress, NASA

Senate offers its own take on FY13 NASA budget (updated)

Monday night the Senate Appropriations Committee released its version of a full year fiscal year 2013 continuing resolution and appropriations bill, which includes a full appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS). The top-level NASA figure is slightly higher than the House CR passed last week, at $17.86 billion (but see caveats below about rescissions and sequestration.) Science, Space Technology, and Construction get a bit more, while Exploration and Space Operations get somewhat less. The table below compares the FY12 levels with the House CR levels and the those in the Senate bill:

Account FY12 FY13 full CR Senate FY13 bill
Science $5,090.0 $5,090.0 $5,144.0
Space Operations $4,223.6 $4,000.0 $3,953.0
Exploration $3,770.8 $4,152.0 $3,887.0
Cross Agency Support $2,995.0 $2,847.4 $2,823.0
Space Technology $575.0 $575.0 $642.0
Aeronautics $569.9 $569.9 $570.0
Construction $390.0 $390.0 $680.0
Education $138.4 $138.4 $125.0
Office of Inspector General $37.3 $37.3 $38.0
TOTAL $17,790.0 $17,800.0 $17,862.0

The bill itself also defines spending levels for the various Exploration programs, illustrating that SLS accounts for almost all the difference between the House and Senate bills for that account:

Item FY12 FY13 CR Senate bill
Orion $1,200.0 $1,200.0 $1,197.0
SLS $1,860.0 $2,119.0 $1,857.0
Comm’l Crew $406.0 $525.0 $525.0
ER&D $304.8 $308.0 $308.0
Expl. Total $3,770.8 $4,152.0 $3,887.0

However, the Construction account includes $262.4 million for SLS ground equipment, bringing the overall spending for the SLS program up to the same level as the House CR.

A separate explanatory statement for the CJS portion of the bill provides additional guidance. That statement gives NASA’s planetary science division $1.415 billion of the Science funding, an increase of more than $200 million over the administration’s FY13 request. $75 million of that is explicitly set aside in the bill for “pre-formulation and/or formulation activities” for a Europa mission, the second-highest priority for a flagship-class mission in the planetary science decadal survey.

In other sections, the statement calls on NASA “to identify and implement ways to accelerate the schedule” of the 130-ton version of the SLS. It also states that the committee expects future elements of NASA’s commercial crew program “will be funded via Federal Acquisition Regulation–based contracts” rather than the Space Act Agreements currently used.

Update: it’s not explicitly mentioned above, but the figures above are before the five-percent sequester. In addition, though, the Senate bill has at the end a rescission provision, cutting all the amounts in the CJS section of the bill by 1.877%. That reduces NASA’s total from $17.862 billion to $17.527 billion. When sequestration is then implemented, it reduces NASA’s overall budget further, to $16.65 billion.

The House CR also included a rescission, but by a smaller amount: 0.098%. Take that off the House total of $17.8 billion, and the agency is left with $17.626 billion pre-sequestration, or $16.745 billion after sequestration. So while NASA overall gets more in the Senate bill than the House version, it actually ends up with slightly less overall because of the differing rescission amounts. (For the record, the administration’s own estimate for the impact of sequestration on NASA’s budget, assuming a full-year CR without any changes, resulted in a total NASA budget of $16.999 billion.)

16 comments to Senate offers its own take on FY13 NASA budget (updated)

  • amightywind

    Its been so long since the democrats produced a budget in the Senate. I guess we should be thankful. That said, the budget shamefully defunds SLS/Orion while continuing the payoff to their friends and campaign contributors in crony space. It won’t pass the House, America’s bulwark against the progressives. Shut down the the government, I say!

    • yg1968

      This isn’t a budget. It’s an appropriation bill and it is expected to pass. The budget for FY 2014 is another issue.

    • josh

      crony space is atk, lockmart and boeing. you’re confused, windy (or just plain dishonest). seems you’re willing to say pretty much anything at this point to preseve your cushy tax payer funded job.

  • RockyMtnSpace

    “A separate explanatory statement for the CJS portion of the bill provides additional guidance. That statement gives NASA’s planetary science division $1.415 billion of the Science funding, an increase of more than $200 million over the administration’s FY13 request. $75 million of that is explicitly set aside in the bill for “pre-formulation and/or formulation activities” for a Europa mission, the second-highest priority for a flagship-class mission in the planetary science decadal survey.”

    That $75M is direct pork to JPL as they would run any directed Europa mission. NASA can’t afford two flagship missions as SMD already has a flagship mission scheduled called Mars 2020. This is already a directed JPL mission which has yet to define science goals and instruments but the “spacecraft” has already been selected. For those that know, this is 180 degrees from the norm. That $75M would be better spent reestablishing the Discovery class mission cadence of one every 2 years, per the decadal survey, from its current 1 every 5 year pace due to the cost overruns on MSL which, to no surprise, was also a directed JPL mission.

  • yg1968

    Those amounts should then be reduced by the sequester by 5.66% (100% less 984/1,043=5.66%). For example, for commercial crew you would get $495.3M ($525M*984/1,043=$495.3M) for FY 2013 after taken into the sequester.
    See this article: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/appropriations/287507-mikulski-shelby-reach-deal-on-funding-bill

  • MattW

    Works for me.

    Any idea what’s included in the plus-up for construction?

    • Jeff Foust

      The Construction account in the Senate bill includes funding for ground infrastructure for SLS/Orion. This also explains why SLS appears appears at first glance to get less in the Senate bill; when you add the exploration ground infrastructure to the funding in the Exploration account, you get the same overall funding as in the House bill.

  • Neil Shipley

    Well just got to say that as an Aussie, the above is unbelievably complicated. Here you either have a budget passed or you go back to the polls and elect a government and opposition that are prepared to pass one. Individual pieces of legislation are a different matter but funding day to day government operations is not up for grabs.

    • josh

      yup, the us political system is badly in need of reform. abolish the electoral college. reform campaign finance. reform the filibuster. and so on and so forth.

    • amightywind

      Sure it is. It is what America voted for, divided government. (The last congressional redistricting was indeed fortunate!) The parties should shut the government down until one side cries, “Uncle!”

      • Robert G. Oler

        America did not vote for divided government…it voted overwhemling to vote the GOP out

        Romney/Ryan lost decisively, The Dems held the Senate with ease..and the House would have gone Democrat had it not been for extensive gerrymandering.

        the people have on every occasion rejected the GOP approach to both budgets and “ideas”. HOR ratings are in the toliet.

        Romney/Ryan did two things on space policy; they (Well Willard did anyway) mocked any massive space plans by Newt G and then couldnt come up with a space policy of their own if they had to…and so they lost Florida. the old state.

        Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    yg1968 said:

    Apparently, most of the redistricting was caused by the Voting Rights Act (not by any gerrymandering by the GOP).

    Do you really expect anyone to believe that felgercarb?

    Even the Republicans crow about it. You calling them liars?

  • common sense

    “Do you really expect anyone to believe that felgercarb?”

    felgercarb??? Darn, I had to look that up with Google!

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