House SS&T Committee Starts Off 114th Congress on Partisan Footing

The House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee held its organizational meeting for the 114th Congress this morning.  The typically routine meeting held at the beginning of each new Congress had a strong partisan flavor to it this year, however.   The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), issued a sharply worded news release detailing changes Republicans made to committee rules on party-line votes, calling it the “single greatest attack” on the rights of the minority party in the history of the committee.

Johnson is the “ranking minority member” of the committee, meaning the highest ranking member of the party that is not in power.  In the 114th Congress, Republicans are the Majority Party and Democrats are the Minority Party in both the House and Senate.

Historically, the House SS&T committee and many other congressional committees have trumpeted the fact that they work in a bipartisan manner, but party-line votes undermine such claims.

In fact, in his opening statement, committee chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) heralded the fact that in the last Congress the committee approved 20 bills (of which six became law), 18 of them on a bipartisan basis, and said he hoped “we can build on this bipartisan success and do more in this Congress.”

Despite that sanguine note, Republicans then voted down all the Democratic amendments to modify the proposed rules (on one of the eight votes today, one Democrat voted with the Republicans).  Smith said in a statement after the meeting that what the committee adopted “preserves the legitimate rights of the Minority.”  He said during the meeting that the goal was to eliminate duplication and align the committee’s rules with those of the House (which also have been amended in this Congress). 

Johnson, who has served on the committee for 23 years under both Democratic and Republican leadership, clearly disagrees.  She listed the following changes that she believes diminishes the Minority’s rights: 

• shortened notice requirements for markups and allowing the Majority to waive notice requirements entirely;
• eliminating review periods for Members to review legislative reports prior to filing;
• requiring more Members to support a request for a recorded vote;
• allowing the Majority to hold a hearing without a single Minority member present;
• providing the committee chair with unilateral subpoena authority;
• eliminating requirements for consultation with the Minority; and
• the Committee receiving blanket deposition authority in House Rules “for the first time in the half century history of the committee.”

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) contrasted this committee’s stance
with that of another committee on which she serves, House Transportation
and Infrastructure, where the entire organizational meeting, including
adoption of rules, took “five minutes” rather than beginning “a new Congress and a new year fighting about the rules.”

A webcast of the contentious meeting is on the committee’s website.

The rules may seem arcane (read our “What’s a Markup” fact sheet to learn what some of them mean), but they give the Majority power to hold hearings, subpoena witnesses and documents, and to more easily pass legislation out of committee and to the floor of the House on a partisan basis.  Of all the changes, giving the chairman unilateral authority to issue subpoenas could have the greatest impact.  In the last Congress, only the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA) had such power.  House SS&T is one of several committees planning to give their chairs such authority in this Congress.  Smith said repeatedly that the authority is necessary because of the Obama Administration’s “dilatory tactics in responding to letters from this committee” and its “lack of transparency.”

How that will play out in the space policy arena remains to be seen, but the sharp differences between the parties on NASA were evident in 2013 when, under the previous rules, the committee approved on party-line votes a new NASA authorization bill that would have prohibited NASA from proceeding with the Asteroid Redirect Mission, dramatically cut funding for NASA overall and especially for Earth Sciences, and established the position of NASA Administrator as an appointed 6-year term.   That bill was never voted on by the House and a bipartisan version was crafted the next year after budget caps were raised, promoting greater agreement.  That bill did pass the House, but was not considered by the Senate and died at the end of the last Congress, so this Congress will be starting over again.  Smith did say today that he hopes a new NASA authorization bill can clear the committee in a bipartisan manner as it did last year.

The number of committee members from each party is roughly proportional to the ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the full House.  For the 114th Congress, Republicans have 22 slots on the House SS&T committee and the Democrats have 17. 

The Republicans announced their membership, including all their subcommittee assignments today.   Democrats are still awaiting appointment of four of their 17 full committee members by the House Democratic leadership and have not announced subcommittee assignments.  The 13 Democrats currently assigned to the full committee are Johnson, Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Ami Bera (D-CA), Elizabeth Esty (D-CT), Marc Veasey (D-TX), Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Don Beyer (D-VA).

The Space Subcommittee, which oversees NASA and the FAA’s Office of
Commercial Space Transportation, will have nine Republicans and six
Democrats.  Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS) will continue to chair the
subcommittee.  The Subcommittee on Environment, which oversees NOAA’s weather forecasting activities,
will also have nine Republicans and six Democrats and Rep. Jim
Bridenstine (R-OK) will serve as chairman.  The Subcommittee on
Oversight, which has broad jurisdiction, including NOAA’s Satellite Modernization activities, was very active in the last
Congress under the chairmanship of Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who lost his
Republican primary last year.  This year the subcommittee will have six Republicans and four Democrats and be
chaired by another Georgian, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA).

The committee also adopted its oversight plan for the 114th Congress today.  With regard to NASA, NOAA satellite programs, and the FAA’s commercial space activities, the language is virtually identical to the 113th Congress plan.  The only notable difference is that oversight of NASA’s earth science program is now under the Space Subcommittee’s purview; last time it was listed with the Environment Subcommittee.