On October 9, already nine
days into fiscal year (FY) 2003, the House Appropriations Committee
finally drafted an FY 2003 VA-HUD appropriations bill that would provide
a substantial increase for R&D in the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA). The Senate drafted its version of the bill in
July, but the full Senate has not approved it yet. The House would provide
NASA with a total budget of $15.3 billion in FY 2003, $398 million or
2.7 percent more than FY 2002. This would exceed the Administration’s
request of $15.0 billion and the Senate’s appropriation of $15.2 billion.
In the House plan, NASA’s R&D funding would rise 6.9 percent
for a total of $10.9 billion, including a 13.6 percent boost in the
key Science, Aeronautics and Technology (SAT) account to $9.1 billion
(see Table). Both the House and the
Senate would go along with NASA’s request to shift money from the International
Space Station project to NASA’s other R&D programs, and the House
would add $117 million in congressionally designated projects, $105
million for a Pluto mission, and $40 million
for a Europa mission. Until the NASA budget becomes final, the agency
is operating at FY 2002 funding levels under a series of continuing
resolutions (temporary appropriations bills).
The House
FY 2003 VA-HUD bill would provide $91 billion for discretionary programs,
nearly the same as the Senate version of the bill. The bill funds science
agencies including NASA, the National Science Foundation
(NSF), the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), and non-R&D programs for veterans and housing. The President
requested $93 billion for the bill’s programs, but both the House and
the Senate would rearrange priorities to give NASA more money than requested.
The House is able to provide more for NASA than the Senate, in part
because of offsets in other parts of the bill, including a controversial
proposed elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service
and proposed savings in several housing programs.
Two-thirds
of the NASA budget, which excludes the Space Shuttle program and its
associated costs, is classified as R&D. NASA’s
R&D would total $10.9 billion in the House plan, slightly above
the Senate allocation, a substantial $697 million or 6.9 percent above
FY 2002, and $258 million above the request. Because the Space Shuttle
program and other non-R&D programs would decline, the total NASA
budget of $15.3 billion would show a smaller increase (up 2.7 percent).
(For details of the Senate appropriation for NASA R&D, see the August
6 AAAS R&D Funding Update. For details of the request for NASA,
see Chapter 10
of AAAS Report XXVII: R&D FY 2003).
The troubled
International Space Station is now projected to run $4.8 billion over
budget, and both the House and Senate language accompanying the respective
versions of the VA-HUD bill express dismay over NASA’s management of
Station costs. Just to fit into the expanded cost, the Station itself
has been downsized to a new ‘core complete’ configuration that will
allow for only three astronauts at a time. Both the House and the Senate
would go along with NASA’s proposal to cut the Space Station budget
by $230 million or 13.3 percent from FY 2002, for a total of $1.5 billion
instead of current-year funding of $1.7 billion. The budget savings
would be funneled to NASA’s other R&D programs.
The Science, Aeronautics, and Technology (SAT) account, which funds nearly
all of NASA’s R&D not related to the Space Station, would receive
$9.1 billion, 13.6 percent or $1.1 billion above the FY 2002 funding
level. This substantial increase would go primarily to the Space Science
and the Aero-Space Technology Programs, as in the Senate proposal.
Within SAT, Space Science would receive $3.6 billion, a 24.0 percent or $688 million
increase. NASA had requested most of the increase, but both the House
and the Senate would provide most of the request and then add some more
funds. The largest addition to the request in both the House and the
Senate would be $105 million for the Pluto-Kuiper Belt (PKB) mission, to be used to develop a spacecraft
for a scheduled launch date of 2006 to Pluto. The FY 2003 request had
proposed to eliminate this mission and reorganize outer-planet exploration
into a New Frontiers program of competitively selected, cost-limited
missions. The House, unlike the Senate, would also provide $40 million
for another outer planets mission proposed for elimination, the Europa
Orbiter mission to Jupiter’s moon. Among the other House adjustments
to the request are a $17 million reduction in proposed new funding for
nuclear technology programs, but that would still leave $109 million
in FY 2003 for initiatives to explore nuclear propulsion technologies
for future missions.
The Aero-Space Technology program would rise 15.0 percent or $375 million
in the House plan to $2.9 billion. Much of the increase would be due
to a boost from $467 million in FY 2002 to $728 million in FY 2003 for
the Space Launch Initiative, which funds research and development efforts
for reusable launch vehicle technology, toward the long-term goal of
developing a replacement for the Space Shuttle. Most other programs
in this account would receive the requested amounts, which would result
in mostly declines in NASA investments in aviation and commercial technology
programs. The Senate would provide a similar increase for the Space
Launch Initiative.
The Academic Programs appropriation of $179 million would be $48 million
less than the FY 2002 funding level, but $35 million above the request
because of 18 congressionally designated projects totaling $25 million,
many of them funded in FY 2002 but deleted in the FY 2003 request. The
Senate would provide even more funds, to 33 designated projects. In
addition to these earmarks, there are earmarks in the other SAT accounts,
for a total of $126 million in congressionally designated projects in
the Senate bill and $117 million in the House version, some of them
overlapping.
The House VA-HUD
bill is now ready for floor debate, but consideration will be delayed
until after the November elections. If the House does not approve the
VA-HUD bill by the end of the year, a new bill will have to be drafted
in the 108th Congress in 2003. The same is true for the Senate
version of the bill; although it was drafted in July, it will not make
it to the Senate floor before the November elections. Until a final
FY 2003 appropriations bill is signed into law, which may not be until
next year, all programs (including NASA programs) will operate at FY
2002 funding levels on a series of continuing resolutions (temporary
funding bills). NASA will have to wait to receive its proposed increases
for Space Science and Aero-Space Technology, and the fate of the Outer
Planets programs will not be known for some time.
- October 16, 2002
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
American Association for the Advancement of Science
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
science_policy@aaas.org
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
(new URL)
