The Washington Post wants NASA’s earth science satellites and NOAA’s weather satellites to be on the list of issues debated in this presidential election year.

The Washington Post editorial chides the Senate for spending its time debating how to find $6 billion to enable interest rates on student loans to remain at 3.4 percent — an “old campaign gimmick” — when earth observation satellite programs are underfunded.

The editorial comes in the wake of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) “mid-term review” of how NASA and NOAA are implementing the recommendations of the NRC’s 2007 Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS) Decadal Survey.  The NRC report concluded that U.S. earth observation satellite systems are in a “precarious” situation because of budget shortfalls, lack of affordable launch vehicles, and changes directed by the White House Office of Management and Budget and by Congress.

The editorial does not mention the two most recent political debates over NOAA and its satellite programs:  the Senate Appropriations Committee’s recommendation to transfer NOAA’s satellite programs to NASA because it believes NOAA manages those programs poorly, or Rep. Ralph Hall’s (R-TX) criticism of NOAA for issuing a contract proposal to have magicians at a training conference.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), already in trouble with the Senate Appropriations Committee, has irked the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee for advertisiing to hire a magician for a NOAA training conference.  NOAA subsequently withdrew the procurement request.

The letter from Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco cites an article in Government Executive (GovExec) that brought the issue to light.  The GovExec article reported on a May 1 NOAA request for a quote on the Federal Business Opportunities website seeking a contractor who has “created a unique model of translating magic and principles of the psychology of magic, magic tools, techniques and experiences into a method of teaching leadership.”  The request has since been withdrawn so no longer is on the fbo.gov website.

The Hall letter to Lubchenko stated that “[a]s the Federal Government continues to burden American taxpayers with trillion-dollar deficits and NOAA struggles to meet critical weather forecasting missions… this type of wasteful spending is simply unacceptable.”

The letter comes in the wake of a significant scandal involving a General Services Administration (GSA) 2010 conference that included a clown and a mind-reader, and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s decision to transfer NOAA’s satellite programs to NASA because it believes NOAA does not manage satellite programs effectively. 

Hall’s letter called on NOAA to “immediately halt spending associated with this conference” and asked NOAA to respond to a series of questions by May 10.  NOAA subsequently withdrew its procurement request.  Government Executive reports that NOAA said in a statement, that is not yet posted on NOAA’s website, that it withdrew the request and referred the matter to its General Counsel and Chief of Resource and Operations Management to look at the process involved in the solicitation and related issues.

The National Research Council’s (NRC’s) assessment of the U.S. earth observation satellite program is that it is in a more “precarious” situation today than it was five years ago when the NRC issued its first Decadal Survey on Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS).

The NRC report released today is a mid-term assessment of how NASA is implementing the recommendations of the ESAS Decadal Survey.  Congress requires the NRC to make such assessments for each of the space and earth science Decadal Surveys the NRC produces.   The NRC issued its first Decadal Survey on Earth science and applications from space in 2007, making recommendations for related NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite programs.

Today’s mid-term assessment credits NASA for responding favorably to the Decadal Survey, but concludes that budget constraints, lack of affordable launch vehicles, and “changes in program scope without commensurate funding, directed by the Office of Management and Budget and by Congress” impeded progress is meeting the Decadal Survey’s recommendations.    As for NOAA, the report cites budget shortfalls and cost overruns on the next generation of polar-orbiting weather satellites for slowing NOAA’s progress in implementing the NRC recommendations.

Consequently, “the nation’s Earth observing capability from space is beginning to wane” and by 2020 the number of earth observing instruments in orbit may be as little as 25 percent of what it is today, the NRC says.  A “rapid decline” is beginning, the NRC warned, and “investment and careful stewardship of the U.S. Earth observations enterprise are more certain and more urgent now than they were 5 years ago.”

A critical piece of the NRC’s recommendations in 2007 was for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop and establish a “national strategy” for earth observations from space.  Five years later, only a preliminary outline has emerged, the NRC said today, and that strategy is still needed.

NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report today criticizing how NASA implements a law intended to discover improper payments by the government.  Among its complaints, the OIG faulted the agency for excluding payments to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and grants from its improper payments analysis.

JPL is a federally-funded research and development center operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).   Many consider it to be one of NASA’s field centers, but in fact it is a contractor.  The OIG report said that NASA paid JPL $1.6 billion in FY2010, but NASA excluded it from a review required by the 2002 Improper Payments Information Act (IPIA) because the agency believed payments to JPL “are not at risk [for improper payments] and that payments made by JPL to its subcontractors are not subject to IPIA.” 

NASA also excluded the approximately $3 billion it awarded as grants from FY2006-FY2010 from its testing methodology for improper payments.    The OIG report said NASA made that decision because “prior results … indicated testing of first-line grant payments was not cost-effective…” and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not provide sufficient guidance on “how to conduct testing beyond the primary recipient.”  NASA’s OIG disagreed, noting that other agencies do include grants in their testing, and by excluding them, NASA was omitting programs that the OIG “previously identified as having internal control weaknesses.”

The OIG make nine recommendations to NASA’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on how to improve its activities regarding implementation of IPIA and the CFO agreed with six of them.  The CFO, Beth Robinson, agreed to include grants and to include JPL.  However, she did not agree to include payments made by JPL to subcontractors.  The OIG disagreed with her position on that issue and called it “unresolved.”

The report is not about whether there actually were improper payments or not.  It only addresses NASA’s implementation of the law.