Panel Cuts Bush's Budget Request for NASA

By Guy Gugliotta and Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 21, 2004; Page A02

A key congressional subcommittee slashed President Bush's NASA budget
request by more than $1 billion yesterday, dealing a sharp early blow to
the administration's efforts to set in motion an ambitious plan to send
humans to the moon and Mars.

The panel eliminated $438 million the administration had requested to
begin work on a new "crew exploration vehicle" to replace the space
shuttle, cut its request for medical and biological research in space by
$103 million, and eliminated $70 million for lunar exploration.

"The bulk of these savings come from the elimination of funding for new
initiatives," said a statement from the House Appropriations
subcommittee that oversees the departments of Veterans Affairs and
Housing and Urban Development and other scientific and unrelated agencies.

The subcommittee passed by voice vote its proposed $90.8 billion 2005
spending bill for those programs. The measure is still awaiting action
by the full House Appropriations Committee and the House. It then goes
to the Senate.

NASA's share was $15.1 billion, down $229 million from this fiscal year
and $1.1 billion below the president's request, effectively slowing the
administration's plans to reorient NASA's priorities toward a return to
the moon and eventual human space travel to Mars.

The committee made it clear in its as-yet-unpublished report on the
proposed legislation that it did not fully agree with the president's
priorities: "While the committee is supportive of the exploration aspect
of NASA's vision, the committee does not believe it warrants top billing
over science and aeronautics," said the report, a copy of which was
obtained by The Washington Post.

Still, lawmakers from both parties were reluctant to describe the cuts
as a rebuke to Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration." Instead, lawmakers
noted strictures for every agency in the subcommittee's portfolio:

"This fiscal policy is going to squeeze . . ., [and] scientific,
research and social programs are not going to be carried out," the
subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), said in a
telephone interview. "NASA is not immune to that. It's a very difficult
bill, and no constituency is going to be satisfied with it."

NASA also took a positive tone. Glenn Mahone, a spokesman for NASA
Administrator Sean O'Keefe, noted that "even within these very tight
constraints, the subcommittee fully funded the shuttle and Mars
exploration programs and expressed support for the new vision."

But while the Mars program got $691 million after a spectacular year
punctuated by the success of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity,
congressional sources said the $4.3 billion allocated for the shuttle
may fall short by $450 million to $760 million as NASA pays the bills
for the shuttle's return to flight after last year's Columbia disaster.

The committee also expressed skepticism that the administration can
finish building the international space station by 2010 and then retire
the shuttle. Knowledgeable congressional staffers, who declined to be
identified by name because of committee policy, suggested that this view
contributed to lawmakers' decision not to fund the crew exploration
vehicle.

"NASA needs to reevaluate this date in the context of the current budget
environment and the technical challenges associated both with
return-to-flight activities and the new system development needs," the
panel's report said.

The report also urged NASA not to forgo the option of a shuttle
servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. O'Keefe has all but
ruled out a shuttle mission to Hubble and is focusing instead on
servicing of the telescope with a robotic spacecraft.

The subcommittee report earmarked funds for both aeronautics research,
an area NASA had sought to cut, and materials research in space, an
endeavor the agency is seeking to eliminate to focus on the medical and
biological research it needs to serve the moon-Mars initiative.
Congressional sources attributed the panel's decision to cut $12.4
million from a mission to explore the moons of Jupiter as a casualty of
budget austerity.

This was felt by other agencies in the bill. Even though the panel
boosted spending on the Department of Veterans Affairs by $4.3 billion
over 2004, Mollohan said the department needed $1.3 billion more for VA
housing. Also short, he said, was federal assistance for low-income
renters of apartments and houses, despite a proposed funding level of
$14.7 billion, $491 million more than in 2004.

The bill proposed paring the budget of the National Science Foundation
to $5.5 billion, $111 million below 2004 and $278 million below the
president's request. The Environmental Protection Agency's spending was
set at $7.8 billion, $613 million below its 2004 level.

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