FY2020 Appropriations Bills Clear Last Legislative Hurdle

All 12 FY2020 appropriations bills passed the Senate today and are on their way to the White House for President Trump’s signature.  Assuming he does not change his mind at the last minute about supporting them — as he did last year — DOD, NASA, NOAA and all the other government agencies in the discretionary portion of the federal budget will be funded through September 30, 2020.

The House passed the appropriations bills on Tuesday.

All told, they provide $1.3 trillion in federal spending for this fiscal year.  The largest share by far is for defense — almost $700 billion.  NASA gets $22.6 billion and NOAA will be funded at $5.5 billion, of which about $1.25 billion is for satellite procurement.

For many years, all 12 bills would be bundled together into a single “omnibus” package.  More recently they have been split into smaller “minibuses.”  This year there are two:

H.R. 1158, Consolidated Appropriations Act

• Defense
• Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS, including NASA and NOAA)
• Financial Services and General Government
• Homeland Security

H.R. 1865, Further Consolidated Appropriations Act

• Labor-Health and Human Services
• Agriculture
• Energy and Water
• Interior-Environment
• Legislative Branch
• Military Construction-Veterans Affairs
• State-Foreign Operations
• Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (THUD)

Those two bills, along with the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which cleared Congress earlier this week, are among the pieces of legislation awaiting presidential signatures.  The appropriations bills must be signed by midnight tomorrow when the existing Continuing Resolution (CR) expires.  The NDAA is also expected to be signed expeditiously.

• The NDAA authorizes creation of a sixth military service, Space Force, as part of the Air Force.  The Defense Appropriations bill funds it at $40 million, compared to the $72.4 million requested.
• The CJS bill gives NASA $22.6 billion, almost exactly the same as the request, but provides only lukewarm support for the new Artemis program to return humans to the Moon by 2024.  Less than half the requested funding for human landing systems (HLS) was approved even though they are a sine qua non for achieving that goal.
• The CJS bill not only funds NOAA’s satellite programs, but the Office of Space Commerce and the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office.  It does not approve the Administration’s request to merge those two offices and move them to the office of the Secretary of Commerce as the nucleus of a new Bureau of Space Commerce. Instead, the bill requires an independent study of the merits of the proposal.
• The THUD bill funds commercial space activities at the FAA, providing slightly more than requested for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, but less than requested for development of a Commercial Space Integrator (or Space Data Integrator) to shorten the time airspace must be closed during launches and reentries, and an associated Center of Excellence.
• The THUD bill also has two NASA provisions.  One extends a waiver to the Iran-North Korea-Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) allowing NASA to purchase space station-related services from Russia through December 31, 2025.  The other extends NASA’s authority to enter into Enhanced Use Leasing agreements through December 31, 2021.

Passing those bills is among the final legislative actions for Congress this year as the House and Senate head home for a two-week holiday break.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that the Senate will return for the 2nd session of the 116th Congress on January 3. The House is set to return on January 7.  Pro forma sessions, where no recorded votes are taken, are scheduled throughout the two weeks.