Politics: NASA expected to get at least same funding as last year

NASA should receive at least the same funding this year as last, but its advocates in Congress are still pushing for more.

Our Washington correspondent, Bart Jansen, reports that the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., released a spending bill for the year that began Oct. 1 that would provide NASA with $18.75 billion.

The legislation's language tracks the policy bill that Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., shepherded through Congress to provide more support for development of commercial rockets while still funding a heavy-lift rocket for NASA to reach asteroids and Mars. The bill contains $1.8 billion for heavy lift and nearly $1 billion for the shuttle program, which would have an extra flight in 2011.

The House is expected to debate and vote today on the legislation called a continuing resolution that would fund the entire government for a year.
But senators who both support NASA and serve on their Appropriations Committee said that rather than basically extending current spending for another year, they would prefer to shift money around among priorities in what is called an omnibus spending package. Such a strategy could boost NASA, which President Barack Obama had proposed to give $19 billion for the year.

"I'd rather have an omnibus than a continuing resolution," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who supports the heavy-lift rocket that Marshall Space Center will help design and build. "We'll see what happens."

Under that scenario, if the House sends the Senate a flat-funding bill called a continuing resolution, the Senate could substitute its spending priorities called an omnibus and send that package back to the House.
Another appropriator, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said she was studying the House spending bill to see whether it hurt the policy bill she negotiated with Nelson.

"We're trying to figure out if it will harm the authorization," Hutchison said. "We're working on that right now."