Senate To Resume Debate on CJS Appropriations Today

The Senate is scheduled to resume consideration of the FY2010 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill today (Wednesday) at approximately 10:30 am under a unanimous-consent agreement that was reached yesterday. The bill was brought to the floor on Monday, but only two opening statements were made–by Senator Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of the CJS subcommittee, and Senator Conrad (D-ND), who presented the Budget Committee’s scoring of the bill.

As part of his remarks (available in the Congressional Record), Senator Shelby once again defended the Constellation program as he did during a hearing on NASA’s budget earlier this year. The Senator, addressing the President of the Senate, said “Mr. President, I am baffled by NASA’s path forward on the Constellation program.” Criticizing the Augustine committee, he said that some of its findings “would guarantee that other nations, such as Russia, China and India will be waving to us as they fly by the space station on their way to the moon and other planets.” He wants NASA to continue with the Constellation program — “the program that has the greatest likelihood of success.” The text of his floor speech is also available on the Senator’s website.