By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 20 at 6:47 pm ET The House did get around to HR 5382 this afternoon and the bill passed on a roll-call vote, 269-120. The vote fell to some degree among party lines: only two Republicans voted against the bill, Reps. Charles Bass (R-NH) and Don Young (R-AK). (Interestingly, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), the only member to vote against HR 3752 in March, voted in favor of HR 5382.) On the other hand, nearly two-thirds of Democrats voting were opposed to the bill. The AP and MSNBC have articles on the bill’s passage, and the House Science Committee has issued a press release praising the bill’s passage. The Senate, however, has yet to act on the bill; as I write they are currently mired in a debate on the omnibus budget bill.
Also, the Congressional Record has published a transcript of the floor debate yesterday afternoon on HR 5382. It’s an interesting read as the major players—Rohrabacher, Boehlert, Oberstar, and DeFazio—make their cases for and against the bill.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 20 at 9:54 am ET I was watching C-SPAN this morning (ok, I had C-SPAN on while doing other things), which broadcast a floor debate on the omnibus budget bill. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) threw this in during his comments on the bill:
They [budget negotiators] did give into the Administration and there’s money to go to Mars. And, maybe, the homeless can ultimately live there, but, God help them, they better be able to, because they’re not going to be able to find housing here.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 20 at 8:52 am ET Alan Boyle (who has been following the HR 3752/5382 debate as closely as anyone outside those directly involved in the process) offers an update on the status of the bill in his Cosmic Log weblog. Supporters of HR 5382 tried to get the bill passed by unanimous consent on the House floor Friday afternoon but, as expected, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) objected; an attempt for a roll-call vote failed because a quorum was not present. There was, though, a 40-minute debate on the bill that Jim Muncy summarizes in this message posted at NASA Watch. (The transcript of the debate has not shown up yet in the Congressional Record.) The issue with the bill, Muncy notes, is the argument by Oberstar and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), ranking member of the House Transportation Committee’s aviation subcommittee, “that we need to regulate spaceflight as if it were just another approach to Aviation.” Muncy also noted that, ironically, both DeFazio and Oberstar voted for HR 3752 in March.
It appears the last chance for the bill in the House will come Saturday morning, when the House reconvenes to handle outstanding legislation, including the omnibus budget bill. The Senate still has to take up the legislation as well; they are scheduled to reconvene late Saturday morning.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 20 at 8:17 am ET The AP reports that final negotiations over the FY2005 budget may have resulted in some extra money for NASA. According to the report, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay won an extra $300 million for the space agency—part of an increase in the across-the-board cuts on other non-defense and non-homeland security programs from 0.75 to 0.83 percent—bringing its budget to around $16.2 billion for FY05. This is the same amount that President Bush originally requested, although presumably the new budget includes extra funding for shuttle RTF and Hubble repair work not in the original budget. Still, that $300 million could make a significant difference in supporting programs linked to the Vision for Space Exploration in the coming year.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 19 at 7:45 am ET MSNBC’s Alan Boyle has a detailed update on the status of the bill formerly known as HR 3752: “formerly known” because the version that House and Senate negotiators compromised on now has a new designation, HR 5382. As of late Wednesday the bill appeared dead, at least in the eyes of the House Science Committee, but on Thursday the House Transportation Committee, which had raised objections to the compromise version of the bill, dropped their opposition and released the bill after being reassured that the legislation contained stronger safety provisions than the original version of HR 3752. However, one Congressman, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), the ranking Democrat on the transportation committee, still objects to the bill and could block any attempt to pass the bill by unanimous consent. In the words of Jim Berard, communications director for the transportation committee’s Democratic staff:
Congressman Oberstar believes that legislation puts into law a ‘tombstone mentality’… where we’re just going to stand by idly and wait until people die. That is something that he’s fought against in commercial airline regulation during his entire time in Congress.
If Oberstar can be persuaded otherwise, the bill could come up for approval as early as today. However, there are only a few days, at most, left in this lame-duck session for the bill to either pass or die.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 18 at 7:55 am ET Space News [subscription required] reported late Wednesday that House and Senate budget negotiators have agreed to give NASA $15.9 billion in FY2005. That amount is less than the $16.2 billion that President Bush originally requested, as well as the $16.4 billion the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed (a figure that includes $800 million in emergency funding), but more than the $15.1 billion in the House version of the budget. The article also notes that the bill includes additional money for shuttle RTF and Hubble robotic repair mission activities, presumably at the expense of exploration-related programs. The Orlando Sentinel also reports Thursday that a compromise at $15.9 billion is in the works, although Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said he is continuing to push for the full $16.2 billion plus additional RTF funding.
The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday that the Office of Management and Budget has issued another veto threat, claiming that the President could veto the entire omnibus budget bill if it has “anything close” to the House’s $15.1 billion NASA proposal. OMB is also opposed to the Senate’s emergency funding measure. The article doesn’t mention if the $15.9 billion compromise would be acceptable to OMB. It would be very surprising if Bush vetoed a giant budget bill over a few hundred million dollars.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 18 at 7:40 am ET The same House Science Committee press release that notes the demise of HR 3752 has a bit of good news. The Senate passed by unanimous consent late Tuesday HR 5245, a bill that would extend commercial launch indemnification for five years. This is of considerable interest to the existing commercial launch industry, which has claimed that the loss of such protection would put them at a competitive disadvantage versus international competitors (a claim treated with skepticism by some on Capitol Hill, hence the provision in the bill to study the launch indemnification regime.) This bill was originally part of HR 3752, but was stripped out by the House early last month when the fate of the larger bill was in question; the House passed the bill by unanimous consent last month.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 17 at 7:16 pm ET The last couple of days have been a roller coaster, to put it mildly. On Tuesday, as reported here, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said publicly that HR 3752 was not dead and, in fact, a final deal was likely by the end of the day Wednesday. However, things apparently took a turn for the worse later in the day, and by Wednesday morning there was growing skepticism that a deal could be reached. On Wednesday afternoon the House Science Committee confirmed the worst in a press release: HR 3752 had been killed by a House committee that stepped into the negotiations on the bill at the last minute.
Continue reading RIP HR 3752. Or not?
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 16 at 5:41 pm ET Besides taking care of the FY2005 budget, the lame-duck session is the last chance for this Congress to pass HR 3752, the Commercial Space Transportation Amendments Act. Regular readers know about the ups and downs of this legislation, but in some introductory comments at Tuesday’s presentation by Peter Diamandis on Capitol Hill, outgoing space subcommittee chairman Dana Rohrabacher expressed some optimism about the bill’s prospects:
[The bill] is still not dead. We are still maneuvering. There have been a couple of last-minute glitches, and we’ve had some repositioning and compromises, but it’s not dead. I’m hoping to ensure its passage by the end of tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed there.
By Jeff Foust on 2004 November 16 at 7:51 am ET Recent news accounts suggest a tone of cautious optimism about the fate of NASA’s FY2005 budget, as Congress reconvenes today for a brief lame-duck session. CongressDailyPM reported late Monday that while a budget cut of 0.75 percent is in the works for non-defense, non-homeland security agencies, NASA may be exempt from this cut and instead get an additional $800 million. The article doesn’t specify, though, from what baseline this money would be added to: if it’s the President’s original budget it’s good news, but less so if it’s from the House version of the budget, which cut $1.1 billion from the President’s request back in July.
The Houston Chronicle also reported Tuesday that there’s some optimism about NASA’s budget, with a spokesman of the House Appropriations Committee saying that a deal may be reached by the end of this week. The article quoted anonymous aides, though, as saying that while the space shuttle may be fully funded, other programs may still suffer cuts in the end. Florida Today takes a more skeptical tone, saying that right now “prospects don’t look good for the moon-Mars missions.” Sen. George Allen (R-VA) told the newspaper that some of his colleagues in the Senate “still have to be convinced (NASA officials) have a plan to spend money wisely.”
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