A brief segment on Fox News this morning features a congressman and a space advocate talking (although not debating) what the Republican takeover of the House means for NASA:
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) (an odd choice, given that he doesn’t play a major role in space issues, although he does sit on the full House Science and Technology Committee) claims that NASA is a “national security issue” and that the Obama Administration “cut back on spending” for NASA. “I think space is a necessity,” he said, suggesting he would seek to protect the agency’s budget from potential cuts. Berin Szoka of the Space Frontier Foundation played up the commercial aspects of the administration’s plan. “In the short term, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter whether we’re sending astronauts up into orbit,” he said. “What matters is, is NASA going to build a commercial sector that can make our presence in space sustainable?” Unfortunately, there was no opportunity in the brief segment for the two to debate their viewpoints.
Another aspect of the election outcome is a new focus on budgets and spending. A major concern is the new Republican leadership would seek to make sharp cuts in spending across the board, including for NASA. Back in September the House GOP leadership proposed rolling back spending to FY2008 levels in its “Pledge to America”, which would trim NASA’s budget from the $19 billion proposed for FY2011 by nearly $2 billion. Such cuts would put additional stresses on the budget that some believe is already to small to carry out everything NASA is tasked to do in the new authorization bill on its current schedule.
Can NASA escape those cuts, if they are in fact pushed through Congress? In an Florida Today editorial Thursday, the paper made a plea to spare the agency. Budget cuts “should be done responsibly and not at the expense of investments that advance America’s leadership in science and technology,” they argue. “That’s precisely what NASA is all about and why possible GOP-led cuts to its budget would be ruinous.” The paper made a particular request to Rep.-elect Sandy Adams (R-FL), who defeated Democrat Suzanne Kosmas to represent the district that includes KSC, and Sen.-elect Marco Rubio (R-FL), to protect NASA’s budget.
In Huntsville, officials are hopeful that Republicans will spare NASA. “Republicans have already taken on the president’s space policy and beat him,” local attorney Mark McDaniel, claimed in comments to the Huntsville Times. “The space policy we have now is a Republican-driven policy.” (That’s an odd claim, since the policy passed by Congress started in the Senate with strong cooperation among both Republican and Democratic members.) That, McDaniel argues, will keep NASA out of the “budget-cutting bulls-eye”.
Others are more skeptical. “A key question is whether the new Congress will view NASA as an investment in the nation’s future or a drain on the economy,” Bill Adkins, principal at the Center for Space Strategic Studies, told Space News. “Support for most NASA programs is pretty strong, but that strength has not been tested in the kind of environment we seem to be heading into.” Some budget cuts, he added, could actually be useful, as they “may actually provide clarity to the choices the agency faces and hasten the process of focusing on solutions.” Provided, of course, that the cuts don’t go too far.
Marcia Smith, in a commentary on SpacePolicyOnline.com, concludes that budget cuts of some kind for the space agency are inevitable. “If Barack Obama wants to get reelected two years from now, he will have to join the bandwagon to cut federal spending,” she argues. The administration’s proposal to increase NASA’s budget by $6 billion over five years “was always just a proposal and it is difficult to believe that it can survive the current economic and political climate.”
Of course, it was clear for some time that the next Congress would be more fiscally conservative than the current one, given the concerns about trillion-dollar budget deficits, and the administration was planning accordingly. Recall that back in June, a joint memo by then-OMB director Peter Orszag and then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel asked federal agencies to volunteer “lowest impact” programs to be cut to obtain a five-percent overall budget cut in the FY2012 budget submissions. The outcome of the election makes it only more likely that there will be budget cuts of some kind.
However, what form those cuts will take, including their magnitude and whether NASA will be either protected or particularly victimized by them remains unclear. While Republicans have control of the House now, Democrats remain in charge of the Senate, with the chair and ranking member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee whose jurisdiction includes NASA, Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), easily winning reelection. That may make it more difficult for House Republicans to get sharp budget cuts through; however, Democrats eager to retain their now narrower majority in the Senate may be willing to go along with some cuts. Also, how those cuts will affect specific NASA programs remains to be seen: outgoing House Science Committee chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) told Florida Today that it would be “hard to move forward with this new commercial track” should NASA spending be reduced.
One near-term milestone for the agency, and federal spending in general, is what Congress does with the FY2011 appropriations bills still not passed when it returns in mid-November for a lame duck session. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) told Florida Today that it’s “hard to see how we would move through new spending package” during the session. That suggests that at least some parts of the government may continue under continuing resolution funding into 2011, when Republicans then take over and could make an initial, early effort to trim federal spending.
With the Republicans retaking control of the House, the race is underway to seek seats on various committees as well as their chairmanships. Ralph Hall (R-TX), the current ranking member of the House Science and Technology Committee, is in line to chair the committee in January, and this week issued a press release that made it sound like he was staking him claim on the chairmanship. “I look forward to working with current members on the Science and Technology Committee, as well as hearing from our new members, to formulate and advance an agenda that keeps our nation moving forward,” he said in the statement. He cited several “key areas” that the committee should conduct oversight of, none of which is directly related to space policy: “climate change, scientific integrity, energy research and development (R&D), cybersecurity, and science education.” It’s unclear yet if any other member, such as Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), will challenge Hall for the committee chairmanship.
Mo Brooks, the Republican who won Alabama’s 5th District in Tuesday’s election, vowed he would “shield NASA”, along with defense and law enforcement, from budget cuts. Interestingly, though, he did not indicate he was seeking a position on the House Appropriations Committee, where he could play a role in stopping such cuts. Instead, he said he was seeking posts on two to three committees, including the Science and Technology Committee.
Of interest to NewSpace advocates: longtime Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) lost to Republican newcomer Chip Cravaack in the early morning hours today. Oberstar was going for a 19th term in the House. He is best known in space circles for leading the opposition six years ago to the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act (CSLAA) in the House, citing concerns about enabling a “tombstone mentality” for commercial spaceflight. In 2005 he introduced legislation to try and roll back some of the provisions of the CSLAA, but that legislation went no where and he had since not been actively involved in commercial spaceflight legislation or regulation. There had been some concerns two years ago that he would have another shot to take action on the industry, had he so desired, as Secretary of Transportation, but he decided to remain in Congress. Few commercial spaceflight advocates, though, will likely be mourning his defeat.
In Arizona’s 8th district, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) has a narrow lead over Republican challenger Jesse Kelly: less than 2,500 votes out of nearly 250,000 cast. Even if she wins, though, she will lose her chairmanship of the House Science and Technology Committee’s space subcommittee as Republicans take control of the House. In the neighboring 7th district, meanwhile, incumbent Raúl Grijalva (D) also has a narrow lead over “rocket scientist” Ruth McClung (R), although with far fewer votes cast overall.
Today is election day, and by late tonight Congress may have a very different look if projections of major Republican gains in the House and Senate hold up. For space policy watchers, there are a handful of races to take note of as the results roll in:
Florida 24th District: one of the few places in the country where space policy is a major campaign issue, thanks to the presence of the Kennedy Space Center, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D) is in danger of losing to Republican challenger Sandy Adams (the New York Times’s FiveThirtyEight gives Kosmas only an 18% chance of winning reelection today.) Kosmas has been a supporter of the agency’s new direction as defined in the NASA authorization bill passed this fall, while Adams has been more vague on the subject, pushing for a shuttle extension that is highly problematic, at best, at this late stage, as they discussed in recent interviews in the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Alabama 5th District: Mo Brooks (R) and Steve Raby (D) are running to succeed Parker Griffith, the Democrat-turned-Republican who lost to Brooks in the Republican primary for the district that includes the Marshall Space Flight Center. [The original version of this post incorrectly identified the current representative of the district.] In a recent debate the two candidates took questionable stands on space issues, with Brooks claiming he would be named to at least two key committees that govern NASA funding (only the appropriations committee handles this) while Raby said he would seek to extend the shuttle program (and, on his web site, vowing to defeat the proposal to end Constellation, which has been effectively ended by the new authorization bill). FiveThirtyEight suggests that Brooks is heavily favored to win.
Arizona 8th District: while not a “space” district, it is home to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), current chair of the space subcommittee of the House Science and Technology committee. Giffords is in a tight race for reelection against Republican Jesse Kelly; projections have Giffords with a narrow but growing lead. However, even if Giffords wins reelection, it looks likely she will lose her chairmanship of the subcommittee with Republicans expected to take control of the House.
Florida 8th District: Rep. Alan Grayson (D) does sit on the House Science and Technology Committee and has become famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for critical questioning of NASA administrator Charles Bolden in one hearing and for colorful rhetoric (calling the commercial crew development program in the NASA budget proposal “the epitome of socialism and corporate welfare”). Grayson is behind in the polls to his Republican challenger, Daniel Webster, although space policy hasn’t played a noticeable role.
Many other races that involve key House and Senate members on space issues aren’t nearly as competitive. For example, in the Senate, Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the CJS subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of that subcommittee; and David Vitter (R-LA), ranking member of the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee, are all up for reelection today, but all are expected to win easily (FiveThirtyEight, for example, gives Mikulski and Shelby 100% chances to win, while Vitter is given 99.5% odds of winning.)
In the House, Reps. Ralph Hall (R-TX) and Pete Olson (R-TX), the ranking members of the full House Science and Technology Committee and its space subcommittee, respectively, are expected to win easily, and would be in line to chair those committees assuming Republicans to gain control of the House tonight.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that the additional shuttle mission approved by Congress in the recent NASA authorization bill could be in jeopardy should NASA’s budget be cut. The concern, voiced in the article primarily by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), is that fiscal conservatives, emboldened by victories in next Tuesday’s election that could shift control of the House and possibly the Senate to the Republicans, would seek significant budget cuts in even the FY2011 appropriations bills yet to be passed by Congress. Nelson in particular cited the desire of two fellow senators, Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to reduce spending to FY2008 levels. “That, of course, would be devastating to NASA,” Nelson said.
If such cuts were made in FY2011 spending, one potential item that would be cut would be the additional shuttle mission, STS-135, with an estimated price tag of $500 million. Technology development and spaceport infrastructure work at KSC could also be cut, but local officials quoted in the article said they’d prefer to see the extra shuttle mission cut before losing those funds.
It’s not clear, though, just how much STS-135 is currently in danger of being cut. While Republicans are poised to win back control of the House, and at least significantly reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate, Democrats will still be in control when Congress returns in mid-November for a lame duck sessions, primarily to handle the outstanding appropriations bills. Republicans could try to slow down or block those bills, though. Recall that in 2006, after Democrats won control of the House and Senate, they decided to sweep aside the appropriations bills that had not passed for FY2007 and instead passed a year-long continuing resolution that funded agencies like NASA at FY2006 levels.
Nelson’s statement, then, could be seen as a preemptive strike of sorts, a variant of the “Washington Monument Syndrome”: since the additional shuttle mission has bipartisan support, and is eagerly anticipated on the Space Coast, where it will keep thousands of shuttle works employed for a few additional months, saying it’s in danger of being cut may be a strategy for keeping it funded.
NASA administrator Charles Bolden went to China and it was okay: In a statement this week, Bolden said his visit met its objectives, which including getting to know the Chinese space program and key officials as well as “reaching a common understanding of the importance of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit as the underlying principles of any future interaction between our two nations in the area of human spaceflight.” The statement emphasized that the meetings “did not include consideration of any specific proposals for future cooperation”, a sore point for some in Congress, but that it laid the groundwork for potential future cooperation.
Back in the US, another NASA official said elements of Constellation would continue on even though the overall program will not. Doug Cooke, associate administrator for exploration systems, cited the J-2X engine, which was under development as the upper-stage engine for the Ares 1, as an example of an element of Constellation where work would continue even though the overall Ares 1 would not. Cooke also said that NASA was examining the development of an HLV with a capacity of 100 tons, somewhat higher than the 70-ton minimum prescribed in the NASA authorization bill.
Earlier this month the Office of Science and Technology Policy released a report to Congress on the hazards of near Earth objects (NEOs). The report, requested by Congress in the 2008 NASA authorization bill, discusses both the search for such objects as well as emergency response measures (FEMA, for example, “would implement its standard emergency notification and response procedures for a space object re-entry incident.”) The report notes that the administration’s goal of mounting a human asteroid mission by 2025 “relates to NEO detection and possible mitigation activities in several ways”, from ongoing search efforts that will turn up more candidates for such missions to “the opportunity to comprehensively survey an entire object” through such missions.
Last week the two major candidates for Alabama’s 5th Congressional District, Republican Mo Brooks and Democrat Steve Raby, participated in a debate hosted by the AIAA in Huntsville. The two are vying to win the seat held by Democrat-turned-Republican Parker Griffith, who lost in the Republican primary to Brooks. Not surprisingly given the district and the debate sponsor, the two tried to demonstrate their space policy bona fides. However, based on a media report about the debate, both candidates have some issues with this issue.
Brooks, for example, claimed that if elected “he believes he’ll be named to at least two key Congressional Committees that would have a major say in steering funding toward NASA.” It’s not clear what committees he’s referring to, but the only committee that “steers funding” to NASA is the House Appropriations Committee—and, typically, its members do not sit on any other committees. (There is the separate issue of the limited influence a freshman member, even one in the majority party, would have on the committee.)
Raby, meanwhile, argues that what NASA workers “need and want” are “new missions”, although he isn’t specific about what kind of new mission (Brooks, according to the article, advocates for a return to the Moon as a prelude to human missions to Mars.) Raby said he would support extending the shuttle program while NASA worked on an HLV. He doesn’t explain how the shuttle would be extended at this late date without a significant gap in launches, nor how shuttle and HLV work could both be fit into NASA’s budget without either an increase in the agency’s overall budget or cuts elsewhere. Raby said he’s also concerned about a “BRAC for NASA”, a reference to the Base Realignment and Closure process used to close Defense Department facilities. However, the new NASA authorization act prevents any reductions in force of NASA’s civil servant workforce—which presumably would be one element of a BRAC process—through the end of FY2013.
On his campaign web site, Brooks doesn’t directly discuss space policy issues, although on a section where he takes a rare pro-earmark stance, he states, “Mo Brooks will not defer total control over America’s defense, NASA or any other part of the budget to President Barack Obama.” Raby does have a section about NASA on the “issues” page of his site. “NASA’s role should be first and foremost in manned space flight with a definite mission to the moon, Mars, and beyond,” he states there. However, he also states, “The proposal to eliminate the Constellation program must be defeated and I’ll do all I can to protect this program.” It may be a bit late for that.
Most election analysts have the district strongly leaning towards Brooks: the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight gives Brooks nearly a 95-percent chance of winning a week from today.
