Senate Appropriators Join House in Boosting NASA’s Budget, Rejecting Trump Cuts

The Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee approved its FY2019 bill today, allocating $21.3 billion for NASA. Although that is somewhat less than the $21.6 billion approved by its House counterpart, it is still significantly higher than the Trump Administration’s request.  Among its actions, the Senate subcommittee rejected Trump proposals to eliminate four Earth science programs, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), and programs funded in NASA’s Office of Education.

This is the first CJS subcommittee markup led by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas).  He assumed chairmanship of the subcommittee in April after Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) succeeded Thad Cochran as chairman of the full committee and moved over to chair the Defense Subcommittee.  Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) is the top Democrat on the subcommittee.

The subcommittee approved a total of $62.995 billion for all the departments and agencies funded in the CJS bill.

Of that, $21.3 billion is for NASA.  By comparison, the House Appropriations Committee approved $21.6 billion in its bill and the Trump Administration requested $19.9 billion.  NASA’s current (FY2018) funding level is $20.7 billion.  (For more on the request and House committee action, see SpacePolicyOnline.com’s fact sheet on NASA’s FY2019 Budget Request on our Fact Sheets page.)

The Senate Appropriations Committee has not released the bill or explanatory report yet, but did publish two summaries — one from the Republicans and one from the Democrats.  Based on those two documents, the subcommittee recommended the following amounts.  Note that the subcommittee retained the same budget structure used in the past instead of the new structure NASA proposed, making some comparisons difficult.  For example, it keeps the Space Technology, Exploration, and, apparently, the Space Operations budget categories.  NASA proposed reorganizing those into Deep Space Exploration, Exploration Research & Technology, and LEO and Spaceflight Operations.  The House committee agreed, but not the Senate subcommittee.

Following are highlights of the subcommittee’s actions to the extent they can be determined from the published material. Totals may not add due to rounding.

Science:  $6.4 billion, $505 million above the request (the House committee approved $6.7 billion).  That includes–

• $1.9 billion for Earth science, including continuation of the four programs proposed for termination (PACE, $161 million ; CLARREO-Pathfinder, $18 million; DSCOVR, $1.9 million; OCO-3, $5.1 million) and $10 million for the Carbon Monitoring System that NASA terminated earlier this year based on FY2018 appropriations.  The House committee also approved $1.9 billion, but did not specify how much is for the four programs proposed for termination, although it did allocate $10 million for the Carbon Monitoring System.
• $2.2 billion for planetary science.  The House committee approved $2.8 billion.
• $1.5 billion for astrophysics, including  $352 million for WFIRST and $304 million for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  The House committee approved $1.3 billion, including $150 milion for WFIRST and $304 million for JWST.
• $720 million for heliophysics.  The House committee approved $689 million.

Aeronautics:  $725 million, $91 million above the request (the House committee approved $715 million).

Exploration, $5.3 billion (using last year’s budget structure, so this total cannot be compared to the request or House committee action).

• $2.15 billion for the Space Launch System.  The House committee approved the same amount.
• $1.35 billion for Orion.  The House committee approved the same amount.
• $540 million for Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) plus $255 million to complete the second Mobile Platform and associated upper stage.  The House committee approved $545 million for EGS.
• $504 million for the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.  The House committee approved the same amount.

Space Technology, $933 million (using last year’s budget structure, so this total cannot be compared to the request or House committee action):

• includes $180 million for the RESTORE-L satellite servicing technology demonstration mission (the House committee approved $130 million)

Education:  $110 million, compared to zero requested (the House committee approved $90 million).  The committee wants to rename NASA’s Office of the Education as “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Opportunities (STEM)” activity.

• Space Grant, $44 million (the House committee approved $40 million)
• EPSCoR, $21 million (the House committee approved $18 million)
• MUREP, $33 million (the House committee approved $32 million)
• SEAP, $12 million (the House committee approved zero)

The full Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up the bill on Thursday morning.