Senate Appropriators Poised to Reject Proposed NASA Budget Cuts, But…

The Senate Appropriations Committee met today to vote on three appropriations bills including the Commerce-Justice-Science bill that funds NASA. As presented by the CJS subcommittee, the bill would reject the deep cuts to NASA’s budget proposed by President Trump, but an unrelated matter — the location of the new FBI headquarters — prevented the bill from being approved. The committee recessed without taking a final vote so the bill is in limbo at the moment.

As its name implies, the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill funds the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, and two science agencies, NASA and the National Science Foundation. The FBI is part of the Department of Justice.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the CJS subcommittee, said this morning the bill would fund NASA at $24.9 billion, slightly above its current $24.8 billion level, with the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) remaining level at $7.3 billion.

By contrast, the Trump Administration wants to cut NASA overall by $6 billion, from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. SMD’s portion would drop 47 percent, from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion.

However, consideration of the bill came to a halt because of a Van Hollen amendment to prevent the Trump Administration from moving the FBI headquarters to the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC instead of a new campus in Greenbelt, MD. Debate has been ongoing for years about where a new FBI HQ should be located with a competition between Maryland and Virginia.  After a lengthy process run by the General Services Administration, Greenbelt won.  The lion’s share of the funding needed is in the appropriations bill that funds the GSA, but some is in the CJS bill.  Van Hollen is fighting to ensure that it is spent only to pay for putting the new HQ in Greenbelt.

The vote on Van Hollen’s amendment was 15-14 with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats to put it over the top. But that was not the end of the story.

The Senate Appropriations Committee uses a unique procedure where they vote to approve bills at the beginning of the meeting, not at the end after all amendments are considered. Senators are allowed to change their votes if they disagree with any amendment that’s adopted.

That’s what happened today. Republicans who initially voted in favor of the bill changed their votes to no. The situation was becoming chaotic and committee chair Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) ultimately decided to recess the committee while discussions continue on a path forward.  She said it’s “unfortunate” this one issue is “sinking a bill that was completely bipartisan and strongly supported by both sides of the aisle.” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), chairman of the CJS subcommittee, said his goal is to get a bill through committee that can pass on the floor.

Van Hollen has a lot riding on the FBI HQ issue because Greenbelt is in Maryland, but also on NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center is in Greenbelt, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab is in Laurel, and the Space Telescope Science Institute is in Baltimore.

When the committee will resume debate is unclear. Collins said they are in recess subject to the call of the chair and it “will be a long recess.”

Separately, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) introduced but immediately withdrew an amendment he calls “Houston we have a problem.” Durbin is exasperated at a provision in the just-passed reconciliation bill that allocates $85 million to move space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, to Houston, TX.  He asked NASA and the Smithsonian how much it would actually cost to do that and their answer was $305 million. Durbin said this isn’t a transfer, but a “heist by Texas because they lost the competition 12 years ago.” Senators frequently offer and then withdraw amendments in order to get a point of view on the record.

The other two bills under consideration today, Agriculture and Legislative Branch, were approved.