The Obama Administration has threatened to veto the FY2013 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill that is scheduled for floor debate beginning tomorrow.  In its Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) released today, the Administration says that it “strongly opposes” passage of the bill for a long list of reasons including cuts to NOAA’s budget and to NASA’s budget for commercial crew.

The SAP begins by criticizing the overall funding level for the bill, H.R. 5326.  The White House notes that the House adopted lower total spending levels for the federal government than what was agreed to last summer in the Budget Control Act.  It says the lower funding level overall will “cost jobs and hurt average Americans. especially seniors, veterans, and children … [and] degrade many of the basic Government services on which the American people rely such as air traffic control and law enforcement.”

It goes on to list specific objections to different parts of the bill and states “If the president were presented with H.R. 5326, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

Regarding NOAA and NASA, the statement says:

NOAA: “The Administration strongly opposes the $93 million reduction in funding from the FY 2013 Budget request for NOAA. This cut would impact negatively NOAA’s ability to support the Nation’s fisheries and oceans stewardship programs such as protected species programs, which would be cut by $16 million below the FY 2013 Budget request and $20 million below the FY 2012 enacted level. Decreased funding for Protected Species Research and Management could lead to delays in permitting or consultations and result in the development of less precise measures, which could have economic impacts on coastal industries such as fisheries, agriculture, oil and gas development, and coastal construction. The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for mission-critical satellite programs.”  

NASA:  “The Administration strongly opposes the level of funding provided for the commercial crew program, which is $330 million below the FY 2013 Budget request, as well as restrictive report language that would eliminate competition in the program. This would increase the time the United States will be required to rely solely on foreign providers to transport American astronauts to and from the space station. While the Administration appreciates the overall funding level provided to NASA, the bill provides some NASA programs with unnecessary increases at the expense of other important initiatives.”

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.