Senate Opposition to Obama Space Plan On The Increase

Shelby adds Constellation-saving measure to emergency war bill, Huntsville Times
“U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, has raised the stakes in the fight over NASA’s Constellation program by attaching a measure to protect it to an emergency war funding bill that must pass Congress this year. The amendment “clarifies and reinforces” current law, Shelby’s staff said, which already requires congressional approval before ending Constellation.”
NASA’s Constellation gets big boost in Senate, Houston Chronicle
“The maneuver was pushed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Dallas and proposed by Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. By including the language in a $58.8 billion budget supplemental to underwrite the costs of combat, Hutchison and her allies virtually assured that the restriction will be adopted by the full Senate and House and signed by Obama — because the costs of the Afghanistan war must be funded.”
Mikulski ‘Troubled’ by Approach to Constellation Termination, Space News
“I am advised that NASA has undertaken a series of steps to direct industry to retain certain funds made available in fiscal year 2010 to cover prospective termination costs so as not to potentially violate the terms of the Antideficiency Act,” Mikulski wrote in a May 10 letter to White House budget chief Peter Orszag. Mikulski, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA spending, gave Orszag until May 25 to review NASA’s contract termination liability practices and develop a detailed plan to implement and pay for a new standard “to deal fairly with industry.”