House Subcommittees Approve NASA, NOAA Funding Bills

The House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee approved its FY2014 funding bill that includes NASA and NOAA today, while its counterpart authorization subcommittee approved a Republican version of a 2013 NASA authorization act on a party-line vote.

The FY2014 CJS appropriations bill calls for a significant cut to NASA and a more modest cut to NOAA.  It was approved by the subcommittee by voice vote. 

The 2013 NASA authorization bill drafted by Republicans was approved by the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee after defeating an amendment by ranking member Donna Edwards (D-MD) who offered her own version of the bill as a replacement.   Her amendment was defeated on a party-line vote, and the bill was approved for forwarding to the full committee also on a party-line vote.  Committee Democrats slammed the Republican bill saying that it “harms NASA” by cutting the amount of funding for the agency while imposing new requirements. 

These are just the first steps in the legislative process.  The bills now must be marked up at the respective full committee levels, pass the House, and compromise must be reached with the Senate before bills are presented to the President for signature.