House Appropriators Propose Substantial Increase for NASA, Including Europa

The House Appropriations Committee released a draft of the FY2015 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that will be marked up by the CJS subcommittee tomorrow (April 30).   It proposes a substantial increase for NASA compared to the President’s request and funding for a robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa would be one beneficiary of the increased spending.

The subcommittee draft recommendation for NASA is $17,896 million, $435 million above the President’s request of $17,461 million.  It is about $250 million more than NASA’s current (FY2014) appropriated level of $17,647 million.

The draft bill provides little detail of the changes the subcommittee wants, but it has a few specifics, including increases compared to the President’s request for the Europa mission, aeronautics, Orion, and the Space Launch System (SLS), and decreases compared to the request for space technology, exploration ground systems, and space operations.

The bill does not specify how much money would be allocated to
commercial crew, one of the more controversial aspects of NASA’s budget
request, or for the International Space Station.

More information on how the subcommittee wants NASA to spend the money typically is contained in the report to accompany the bill, which usually is not publicly released until after the full committee marks up the bill.   Tomorrow’s action is markup at the subcommittee level; the date for full committee markup has not been announced.

The draft bill continues the cap on development funding for the James Webb Space Telescope at $8 billion as well as the prohibition on NASA or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from spending funds related to space cooperation with China unless certain conditions are met.

The draft is just that, a draft.  It is a first step towards providing FY2015 funding for NASA and other agencies (including NOAA) covered by the bill.  Subcommittee markup must be followed by full committee markup and then passage by the House.  The Senate will produce its own version of the bill using a similar process.  Eventually the two sides of Capitol Hill must agree and the President must sign it.  Whether they complete the process by the beginning of FY2015 on October 1, 2014 is always chancy.

The funding figures in the House CJS subcommittee draft bill are as follows

• Science:   $5,193 million.  That is $221 million more than the President requested, and $42 million more than the FY2014 amount.  Of the $5,193 million, $100 million is for the Europa mission.  The President requested $15 million for FY2015.   The President requested zero for Europa in FY2013 and FY2014, but Congress appropriated $75 million in FY2013 (subject to rescissions and the sequester, which left about $69 million) and $80 million in FY2014.
• Aeronautics:  $666 million.  That is $115 million more than the President requested, and $100 million more than the FY2014 amount.
• Space Technology:  $620 million.  That is $85.5 million less than the President requested, but $44 million more than the FY2014 amount.
• Exploration:  $4,167 million.  That is $191 million more than the President requested, and $54 million more than the FY2014 amount.  Of the $4,167 million — 
  • $1,140 million is for Orion, which is $87 million more than the President requested, but $57 million less than the FY2014 amount.
  • $1,600 for development of the Space Launch System (SLS), which is $220 million more than the President requested, and the same as the FY2014 amount.
  • $315 million for Exploration Ground Systems, which is $36 million less than the President requested, and $3 million less than the FY2014 amount.
• Specific amounts are not provided for commercial crew and exploration R&D, the other two components of this budget category.
  • The President requested $848.3 million for commercial
    crew and $343.4 million for exploration R&D, a total of $1,191.7
    million. 
  • Designated funding for Orion, SLS and exploration ground
    systems in the draft bill totals $3,055 million, leaving $1,112 million
    for commercial crew and exploration R&D.  How they plan to split
    that funding may become clearer tomorrow during subcommittee markup.
• Space Operations:  $3,885 million.  That is $20 million less than the President requested, but $107 million more than the FY2014 amount.  The figure is not broken down to show how much is for the International Space Station and how much for Space and Flight Support.
• Education:  $106 million, which is $17 million more than the President requested, but $10.6 million less than the FY2014 amount.  The bill specifies that of the $106 million, $9 million is for EPSCoR and $30 million is for Space Grant.
• Safety, Security and Mission Services:  $2,779 million. This is a new name for a budget category labeled Cross Agency Support in the NASA budget request; it more accurately describes what activities the money supports.   The draft bill proposes the same amount as the President’s request, which is $14 million less than the FY2014 amount.
• Construction, Environmental Compliance and Restoration (CECR):  $446 million.   That is the same as the President’s request, and $69 million less than the FY2014 amount.
• Inspector General:  $34 million. That is $3 million less than the President’s request, and $3.5 million less than the FY2014 amount.

Since these are draft numbers, we are not yet updating our fact sheet on NASA’s FY2015 budget request, but will do so when the bill completes full committee markup.

Note:  An earlier version of this article mistakenly compared the amount recommended by the subcommittee for Exploration Ground Systems to the FY2014 appropriated amount.  The subcommittee’s recommendation of $315 million is $3 million less than the $318 million appropriated.