House Draft T-HUD Appropriations Bill Denies Half of Increase to FAA Space Office – UPDATE

The draft FY2017 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill released by the House Appropriations Committee today provided only half of the requested increase for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).   The Obama Administration requested $19.8 million, a $2 million increase over current funding.  The T-HUD subcommittee draft provides half of that proposed increase — $1 million, for a new total of $18.8 million.  Subcommittee markup is scheduled for tomorrow morning. [UPDATE: The subcommittee approved the bill.]

AST facilitates and regulates the commercial space launch industry, issuing licenses to companies for launches and reentries, licensing spaceports, and participating in accident investigations.   Its responsibilities have grown as the number of commercial space companies has blossomed over the past several years.  Also, congressional advocates like Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) want to expand its functions into other commercial space areas such as issuing “mission licenses” to companies planning to mine asteroids and becoming involved in space situational awareness.  (Bridenstine’s American Space Renaissance Act proposes a $43.2 million budget for AST in FY2017.) 

Against this backdrop, AST has been endeavoring to hire more staff, but Congress has been reluctant to go along.  Last year, the President’s request for AST was $18.115 million, a $1.5 million increase over AST’s FY2015 level of $16.605 million.  The House Appropriations Committee held the office to its FY2015 level, although Bridenstine offered an amendment on the floor that added $250,000. (He often jokes that he may be the only member who has argued for such a meager increase for any program, but any increase must be offset by a decrease elsewhere.)  By the end of the FY2016 appropriations process, however, that amount grew to $17.8 million, still short of the request, but better than the House appropriations figure.

Bridenstine and 17 other Republicans and Democrats sent a letter to the T-HUD subcommittee chairman and ranking member in March arguing for the full $19.8 million for FY2017.  While it did not convince them to provide the full amount, they at least approved half of the proposed increase, an improvement over last year. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the full request.

FAA’s commercial space transportation activities also receive funding through two other accounts, but the draft House bill does not provide sufficient detail to determine how they fared.  The requests are $2.953 million in FAA’s Research, Engineering and Development (RE&D) account for safety-related activities and $2 million as part of a $20 million request for Air Traffic Management in the Facilities and Equipment account.  The latter is for integrating commercial space activities into the National Air Space.