Senate action on NASA authorization mirrors the House

While the NASA authorization bill had to compete with nearly two dozen other bills and nominations at a Senate Commerce Committee markup Tuesday, that bill ended up getting the bulk of the attention during the hearing. It started off on a light note from the committee’s chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). “Never in my entire […]

Senate Commerce Committee to markup NASA authorization bill today

The Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to consider its version of a NASA authorization bill in an executive session slated for 2:30 pm EDT today. The committee, though, isn’t likely to spend much time on the bill: it is one of 22 items on the agenda for the hearing, including 12 other bills and nine […]

Garver on NASA’s opportunities and challenges

NASA has a number of opportunities for the future, including ways to partner with the private sector, but those effort face challenges that are often in the form of opposition from Congress, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver said Friday.

Garver, giving a keynote speech Friday at the NewSpace 2013 conference—an event with a particular focus […]

Comparing the House and Senate NASA authorization bills

Last week, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) announced that he was introducing in the Senate a version of a NASA authorization bill that would be different in many respects than the House version. That Senate bill got lost in the debate over that House bill, as well as consideration of separate appropriations bills in the House […]

The next FCC chairman and commercial space

In May, President Obama nominated Tom Wheeler to become the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While he has yet to be formally confirmed by the Senate, he did breeze through a confirmation hearing by a “generally welcoming” Senate Commerce Committee in June, and his nomination has broad support.

It also turns out […]

House and Senate NASA FY14 appropriations comparison

With the passage on Thursday of the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill by the full Senate Appropriations Committee, it’s possible now to compare that bill’s funding levels for various NASA accounts with the House version of the same bill and the administration’s original fiscal year 2014 budget request (amounts below in millions of […]

NASA authorization bill clears Science Committee, but with a few changes

The outcome was never really in doubt: the House Science Committee approved HR 2687, the NASA Authorization Act of 2013, on a straight party-line vote. All 22 Republican members voted for the legislation, and all but one Democrat voted against it (Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida did not vote.) The vote came after Democrats proposed […]

House NASA authorization could offer some fireworks

The House Science Committee is holding its markup of a NASA authorization bill this morning (the meeting has been delayed two hours to 11:15 am EDT.) The bill will, presumably, be approved by the full committee, although it may be on a party-line vote as was the case in last week’s subcommittee markup.

However, there […]

House appropriations approve spending bill as NASA, industry complain

The House Appropriations Committee, as expected, approved a Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill Wednesday, sending the legislation on to the full House on a voice vote. The committee accepted a few amendments during the full committee markup, none of which affected NASA, leaving the funding levels in the earlier version of the bill […]

Nelson to introduce Senate version of NASA authorization bill today

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), chairman of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, announced Wednesday that he will be formally introducing later in the day the Senate’s version of a NASA authorization bill that will differ sharply from the House version.

Nelson, speaking at the luncheon of the Future Space 2013 conference in Washington […]