Excerpts from House Debate on Space Station Appropriations

On June 28, during consideration of the fiscal year 1994 VA/HUD appropriations bill, the House of Representatives rejected by a vote of 196-220 an amendment to terminate funding for the space station (see FYI #91). Below are selected quotes from the floor debate on the amendment:

Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio; chairman of the House appropriations VA/HUD subcommittee): “I voted for space station last week-- and I will support the program today. But my support is contingent on NASA accepting the Vest panel’s recommendations and implementing the station management changes-- not in a few months-- not in a few weeks-- but now. I believe the space station program deserves another chance. NASA and the White House are committed to making management changes necessary for this program to work.”

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin): “I think the time has come to put this on the shelf. The real cost of this baby is going to be about $100 billion. We could fund the National Science Foundation for 30 years with that.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-California): “We are a country of pioneering spirit. We cannot sacrifice this opportunity. In another time Christopher Columbus went to Queen Isabella and suggested that she should help him finance a little program. He would take a few ships across the ocean to find spices, and maybe find a new world, and produce a new vision as well as a new hope for mankind. What if Queen Isabella has said, `You know, Chris, I think you’ve got a good idea, but frankly, that idea just isn’t feasible right now. My budget can’t afford it and some of my advisors say I should do it, and some say I shouldn’t do it.’ To say the least, it would have changed the history of mankind.”

Rep. Marge Roukema (R-New Jersey): “I would warn my colleagues, do not be taken in by pseudo-historical lectures and emotional appeals about our place in history. I taught history too and I could set forth historical parallels of prior civilizations that spent their heritage and were deluded by their leaders. Egyptians, Ottomans, and Romans all were victims of their own foolishness.”

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas): “The gentlewoman from New Jersey was talking about the Romans. If I remember my history right, the Romans at the end of the empire spent all their money on consumer goods and spent money on the current day rather than investing in tomorrow. Mr. Chairman, that is what you are doing if you kill the space station. You are moving money from productive investments in the future to nonproductive social programs, as has been brought out by speaker after speaker here tonight that wants to kill the space station so they can reallocate the money for their spending programs.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-California): “Mr. Chairman, the cold war is over. Highly trained Americans helped us win that twilight struggle. Millions of experienced engineers, technicians, machinists, scientists, the dedicated patriots who built and maintained our Nation’s high-tech military might during those years are the same folks whose lives and mortgage payments are now on the line. The space station and the space program are the way to keep these folks usefully employed doing work that returns value to this Nation while our economy adjusts. Mr. Chairman, the space station is defense conversion. It is not a jobs bill.”

Rep. Charles Schumer (D-New York): “Today my office received some information on jobs that the space station provides to New York state. According to NASA, $19.38 million in station contracts in New York provides 153 jobs. That is supposed to be a reason for me and my New York colleagues to support this boondoggle-- 153 jobs at a cost of a whopping $126,666 apiece to the taxpayer. If what we are looking for is a jobs program making effective use of the taxpayers’ money, then that is a good reason to oppose the station, not support it.”

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pennsylvania): “Many people say we are first in space in the United States, and, therefore, we should stay with this effort. May I remind my brethren on the floor that the Soviet Union was first in space, and they are no more?”

Rep. George Brown (D-California; chairman of the House science committee): “The gentleman from Indiana [Rep. Tim Roemer, sponsor of the amendment] has said, and it has been repeated by numerous other opponents, that NASA has taken money and the space station has taken money from other accounts. There is nothing farther from the truth. If NASA and the space station did not exist, the Committee on Appropriations would have to invent it in order to have more money to put into housing, VA, EPA, and other programs. . . . NASA has taken a $700 million cut below the President’s request. That money has been recycled then into these other departments, and that is how they get the money in the Committee on Appropriations to increase these amounts. If they did not have NASA in that subcommittee, there would be no place to get that money, and all of these programs would be less than they are today.”