House VA/HUD Report Language: NASA
House appropriators on June 25 passed H.R. 4194, the FY 1999 VA/HUD appropriations bill, which funds NASA and NSF. Report language has just become available which provides, in detail, the Appropriations Committee’s recommendations for funding. The funding recommendations for NSF are given in FYI #97 , with additional report language to be provided in FYI #107 . This FYI highlights selected passages from the NASA portion of the report (H. Report 105-610.)
The House Appropriations Committee would provide less in total NASA funding than either the budget request or the current year (FY 1998) appropriation, and less than the $13,615 million recommended by Senate appropriators. The Human Space Flight (HSF) account would also receive less from the appropriators than the request or FY 1998 funding; Science, Aeronautics and Technology (SAT) would receive more than requested, although less than current year funding.
NASA FY98 FY99 House
Program Approp. Request Report
(In millions)
NASA TOTAL $13,648 13,465* 13,328
HSF 5,507** 5,511* 5,309
SAT 5,690 5,457 5,542
Mission Support 2,433 2,477 2,459
*Amounts do not include an additional $7.729 billion in advance appropriations requested for the space station in future years.
**The report shows that an additional $53.0 million was transferred to the space station account in FY 1998.
HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT: Within Human Space Flight, the International Space Station would be funded at $2,100.0 million. This represents a decrease of $170.0 million below the request. The committee would not provide an additional $7,729.0 million in advance appropriations for the station for years beyond FY 1999. According to the report, “The Committee has concerns that management control, at both the contractor and agency levels, is lacking. When the Congress was finalizing the fiscal year 1998 supplemental in April of this year, NASA insisted that total funding required for 1998 would be at least $2,551,300,000. While the Congress was unable to provide additional resources up to this level of funding, approval was granted for a funding level of $2,441,300,000. It has now come to the Committee’s attention that even this lower level of funding is not going to be required in fiscal year 1998 and in fact up to $400,000,000 will not be spent. The Committee cannot continue to provide funding [in] excess of near-term needs and directs NASA to take action to improve the financial management of the program immediately. The Committee agrees that the ability to do life and microgravity research is the principal reason for building the space station, but is concerned that the research program for the space station is suffering from a lack of focus because the management of the space station program is preoccupied with development and assembly. The Committee therefore directs NASA to transfer administrative responsibility for the space station research program to the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications.”
SCIENCE, AERONAUTICS AND TECHNOLOGY: The committee recommends $84.2 million above the request for SAT. The report says, “The amount provided includes an increase of $43,600,000 for Space Science, $43,000,000 for Aeronautics and Space Transportation, $21,500,000 for Life and Microgravity Science, $29,400,000 for Academic Programs, and $5,000,000 for Mission Communications. These increases are partially offset by a general reduction of $59,400,000 from earth sciences programs reflecting a reduction in uncosted carry-over.”
Within space science, appropriators have recommended increases, above the budget request, for the Mars 2001 program, the Space Solar Power program, the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program, and a NASA Science Center at Glendale Community College in California.
For life and microgravity sciences, appropriators would provide $21.5 million more than the request. “This amount,” the report explains, “includes $6,500,000 for space radiation research. The Committee is concerned that the life sciences program will have a significant gap of seven to nine years between major thematic missions. Without one or two dedicated thematic life science missions during this gap, universities will have significant problems in...retaining the best scientists and attracting the best new students into the field. Therefore, the Committee has provided $15,000,000 to be used to address the projected gap.
“Over the course of the shuttle program,” the report continues, “this Committee has been very supportive of a robust science program. It is with dismay, therefore, that the Committee learned of a draft shuttle manifest that dropped...a mission scheduled for May 2000 designed to perform cutting edge medical research and promote commercial access to space. The Committee urges NASA to revisit this issue in a final manifest and strive for a more equitable balance between science, commercial interest, and space station assembly.”
For earth sciences, the report says, “The Committee recommendation includes a general reduction to the budget request for earth sciences programs. The Committee remains concerned with the execution of several specific programs within earth science and with the large amounts of unobligated and uncosted carryover funds associated with this portion of the budget. The Committee recommendation includes a general reduction of $59,400,000 which is less than 10% of the uncosted carryover which existed at the end of fiscal year 1998.”
The full House intends to take up the FY 1999 VA/HUD funding bill later this week; the Senate has begun, but not completed, debate on its version of the bill.
