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Swift Activity on NASA & NOAA Budgets

The subcommittees of jurisdiction in the House and Senate, for the NASA and NOAA civil space budgets, recently marked-up budget bills for fiscal year 2013. The House passed their version of the NASA and NOAA budgets in May. As lawmakers look to reconcile differences between these bills through a conference committee, AIA will continue to conduct meetings on Capitol Hill to advocate full funding of the president’s civil space budgets. A table comparing the funding allocations from each subcommittee is provided below, along with notes of interest from the subcommittee reports.
 

The NASA top-line budget was passed at $17.45 billion in the House - a $324 million reduction from the president’s request. The Senate proposed $19.4 billion budget for NASA that appears to be a dramatic increase over the president’s request. However, this increase is actually due to a proposal to shift weather satellite acquisition programs out of NOAA and into NASA. Taking the proposed weather satellite change into consideration, the Senate top-line budget for NASA’s baseline request is roughly $47 million above the President’s request. 

Within the Exploration account, the Space Launch System was funded at $1.45 billion in the House, with additional funds allocated for SLS ground systems in the Exploration and Construction accounts. House funding for SLS would be an increase of $114 million over the president’s request. The Senate allocated $1.48 billion for SLS vehicle development, an increase of $142 million over the president’s request, with additional ground systems funding also allocated in separate accounts. The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle that will ride on SLS was funded in the House at $1.02 billion, which matches the president’s request. In the Senate, Orion was funded at $1.2 billion, an increase of $175 million over the president’s request.

The president’s request for Commercial Crew program was $830 million and was funded at $500 million in the House and $525 million in the Senate. The House committee report recommended that the Commercial Crew program make “an immediate down select to a single competitor or, at most, the execution of a leader-follower paradigm in which NASA makes one large award to a main commercial partner and a second small award to a back-up partner.”  The Senate report stated, “Within the funds available, NASA should strive to ensure that multiple competitors remain, but should also be mindful that, faced with a stagnant future budget, NASA should not take on obligations to more companies than can be practically supported.”

The House funded an additional $208 million over the president’s request for Planetary Science from the Science account at NASA. Part of this increase was allocated for Mars exploration to “allow for a more substantial mission concept to be developed. According to the decision rules of the decadal survey, however, that mission concept must lead to the accomplishment of sample return in order to remain a top funding priority.” The Senate funded an additional $100 million over the president’s request for Planetary Science, with the report also addressing the recent Mars program reorganization by NASA. The committee “supports any re-planned Mars program that can take advantage of upcoming opportunities to launch robotic science platforms to Mars as early as 2016. NASA is expected to use these funds to retain core U.S. competencies in areas such as entry, descent, and landing.”

NOAA’s top-line budget for the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service in the House was funded at $1.82 billion, just $30 million below the president’s request. In the Senate however, the Appropriations Subcommittee proposed a total shift of weather satellite acquisition programs from NOAA and into NASA. The report stated, “the Committee transitions NOAA's entire satellite acquisition portfolio to NASA under a new account called Operational Satellite Acquisition. NASA is already managing the acquisition contracts for NOAA and is the established link with the government contractors. By eliminating NOAA and the Department of Commerce as the middle brokers, the taxpayers can save roughly $117,000,000 in fiscal year 2013 alone while retaining some funding in NOAA within a new Satellite Requirements and Integration line to preserve the agency's role as the provider of requirements-based input to NASA's procurement process.”

Regardless of how weather satellite acquisition is structured within the U.S. government, AIA firmly believes that NESDIS satellite programs must receive robust and stable funding. Without steady investment in weather satellites, the nation risks dire consequences – both in terms of safety and economic consequences.

AIA Source: dan.hendrickson[at]aia-aerospace.org