What's Happening in Space Policy May 18-24, 2015

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of May 18-24, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The House and Senate will be rushing this week to complete a lot of legislative business before the Memorial Day recess.  The House, in committee and on the floor, will continue work on FY2016 appropriations bills against Democratic objections and a Presidential veto threat because Republicans used a gimmick to add money to the defense budget above the Budget Control Act (BCA) spending caps, but will not add a dime for non-defense spending.  Democrats want to do away with the BCA caps and the associated sequester threat entirely, but the Republicans are doing it only for defense.  Their tactic is to add money to the “Overseas Contingency Operations” (OCO) account that does not count against the caps and change the rules so the money can be spent for routine defense purposes rather than only for executing the war in Afghanistan, for example.  The end result is expected to be another long, drawn out budget process as Democrats and Republican fiscal conservatives (who also object to the OCO tactic, but want to keep the caps) battle in Congress and the President readies his veto pen.

For now, however, the House Appropriations Committee continues marking up FY2016 appropriations bills and sending them to the floor for the whole House to consider.   This week the full committee will mark up the Commerce-Justice-Science bill that includes NASA and NOAA (subcommittee markup was last week), while the defense subcommittee marks up the defense bill.  Both markups are on Wednesday morning; the defense markup is closed.

The House itself will take up two space-related bills that have been approved by the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee. The Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act (H.R. 1561) has bipartisan support and will be brought up under suspension of the rules on Tuesday.  That means it is expected to easily garner aye votes from at least two-thirds of the Members. The Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act (SPACE) Act, H.R. 2262 is quite the opposite.   Approved in committee on a strictly party-line basis, it will be considered on the House floor under regular order.  That means it will go first to the House Rules Committee to determine what (if any) amendments will be allowed. The Rules Committee meets on Tuesday afternoon and floor debate is scheduled for Thursday.

The Senate will be busy, too.   On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will mark up the Commercial Space Launch Act (S. 1297) and the Seasonal Forecasting Improvement Act (S. 1331).   S. 1297 and H.R. 2262 have similar goals — to update the existing
Commercial Space Launch Act — but different approaches, and
the Senate bill has bipartisan support.  S. 1331 and H. R. 1561 also have similar goals, but different approaches.  One goal is improving how NOAA acquires satellites and encouraging NOAA to use more commercial weather satellite data. 

Congress has a lot of interest in commercial weather data these days. The House SS&T Environment Subcommittee will hold a hearing specifically on that topic on Wednesday morning.   Ah yes, Wednesday morning.  It will take three of you to cover everything or skilled multitasking to watch the webcasts (just about all congressional hearings and markups are webcast on the respective committee’s website, except for closed meetings to discuss classified matters, of course).  The House hearing is at 10:00, the CJS bill markup up at 10:30, and the Senate markup also is at 10:30.  (The defense appropriations markup is at 9:30 that day, but is closed.)

Not everything happens in Washington, of course.   The National Space Society’s annual International Space Development Conference  (ISDC 2015) will take place in Toronto, Canada, from May 20-24 with a great program of speakers.

Those and other events that we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.

Tuesday, May 19

• House consideration of H.R. 1561, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC, time TBD
• House Rules Committee consideration of H.R. 2262, H-313 Capitol, 3:00 pm ET

Wednesday, May 20

• House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee markup FY2016 Defense Bill, H-140 Capitol, 9:30 am ET (closed)
• House SS&T Environment Subcommittee hearing on Commercial Weather Data, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
• House Appropriations Full Committee markup FY2016 CJS Bill, 2359 Rayburn, 10:30 am ET
• Senate Commerce Full Committee markup including S. 1331 and S. 1297, 253 Russell, 10:30 am ET
• AIAA-NCS Banquet Featuring NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Director Chris Scolese, Army Navy Country Club, Arlington, VA, 6:00-9:00 pm ET

Wednesday – Sunday, May 20-24

• International Space Development Conference 2015 (ISDC), Toronto, Canada

Thursday, May 21

• WIA Breakfast Featuring DOD’s Jamie Morin, Director of Cost Assessment and Program Analysis, SAFTAS Conference and Innovation, Center, Arlington, VA, 8:30 – 10:00 am ET
• WSBR Luncheon Featuring Tory Bruno,. President, United Launch Alliance, University Club, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET