Shaheen and Moran Preview Thursday’s CJS Appropriations Markup

The chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA offered a glimpse today of what they are recommending for NASA in FY2025. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said NASA will get an increase, but did not specify if that is above what NASA has for FY2024 or above the President’s request for FY2025. She and Sen. Jerry Moran are enthusiastic about NASA, however, especially the Artemis program. The bill will be marked up by the full committee this week.

Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) and Moran (R-Kansas) are leading a bipartisan congressional delegation (CODEL) to the 2024 Farnborough International Airshow in the United Kingdom. Speaking to reporters at an event hosted by the Aerospace Industries Association this morning, they were joined by Senators John Boozman (R-Arkansas), Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska), John Kennedy (R-Louisiana), and Katie Britt (R-Alabama). Shaheen said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) also is part of the delegation.

Asked how NASA fared in the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that the full committee will mark up on Thursday, Shaheen shared good news.

“We’re pleased to have reached agreement on our bill. … We have increased funding for NASA … We’ve also increased funding for the National Science Foundation. … So despite the challenging fiscal year because of the Fiscal Responsibility Act … we feel like we’ve made a down payment on investments we need to ensure that America continues to stay on the cutting edge of space as well as the other areas in our portfolio.” — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

Moran added that although they support everything NASA does, the Artemis program is a priority to ensure the United States is not outpaced by China.

“We’re supporters of NASA and space matters greatly. All the aspects of NASA, every one of them, is important to the country. … It’s been a goal of mine and others to make certain that Artemis is protected and that our plans to be on the Moon are advanced. While it certainly is a difficult time in the total dollars we have allocated to our subcommittee, we have prioritized making certain that that’s the case. It matters. We do not want to be the country that is watching China advance their space exploration program at our disadvantage and it’s important to us nationally to make certain those investments continue.” — Sen. Jerry Moran

For FY2024, Congress sharply cut NASA’s total budget both from the request and from its FY2023 level. The $24.875 billion appropriated was two percent less than FY2023 and more than $2 billion less than the President’s request.

The reduction was due to budget caps imposed by last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act. The FRA was negotiated by President Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after House Republicans demanded deep cuts in federal spending, especially non-defense spending like NASA, in exchange for agreeing to suspend the debt limit.  The caps are for FY2024 and FY2025.  Just about every federal agency is affected to one degree or another.

For FY2025, President Biden is requesting a two percent increase to bring the agency back to its FY2023 level, but the FRA caps dictated no more than one percent increase government-wide in FY2025.

The caps are not agency-specific. They are for total federal spending, leaving Congress some flexibility on how to allocate the funds, but the House Appropriations Committee approved only a one percent increase for NASA. While some consider that an increase because it’s more than FY2024, others count it as a cut since it is $205 million less than the FY2025 request and does not bring the agency back to its FY2023 level.

The caps are doing what they are intended to do — reduce federal spending. NASA is no exception and the science program is bearing the brunt. Last week it said it wants to cancel the VIPER lunar rover program because of cost growth and earlier this year paused the Mars Sample Return program while it seeks innovative ideas on how to get samples from Mars back to Earth more affordably. The FY2025 request proposes essentially ending operations of the Chandra X-ray space telescope and cancelling the Geospace Dynamics Constellation.

The fate of all those programs is in Congress’s hands since Congress holds the power of the purse. Artemis seems to be a priority for both the House and Senate, but how much agreement there is on other NASA programs will be more evident on Thursday.