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Congress

Bill Nelson: Do As I Say Not As I Do

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 2, 2017
Filed under , ,
Bill Nelson: Do As I Say Not As I Do

Jim Bridenstine to Be Nominated by Trump to Lead NASA, NY Times
“The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician,” Mr. Nelson, a Democrat, said in a statement on Friday.”
Keith’s update: I think it is the height of hypocrisy for Sen. Nelson to say that a politician cannot be an effective NASA Administrator especially when Nelson, a professional politician, overtly used his position – as a politician – to force NASA to give him a ride into outer space.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

32 responses to “Bill Nelson: Do As I Say Not As I Do”

  1. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    Ah the hypocrisy of senator ballast was James Webb a space professional? He was before my time but is it more important to be a space geek or someone who knows how to dance the Potomac two step given the president space council may be setting overarching policy?

    • kcowing says:
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      Exactly.

    • savuporo says:
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      Space professionals at the helm have been pretty disastrous at the helm. Another Goldin or Griffin and the agency would be done.

    • Richard Malcolm says:
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      Webb wasn’t a space professional (and there were few enough of those in 1961 anyway), but he did have experience in running major programs and companies: He was vice president of Sperry when it was a major supplier of radars during the war, ran the Kerr-McGee Oil Corp., and was OMB director. He also reorganized the State Department for Harry Truman.

      I think the real problem with Bridenstine is that lack of major management experience. Presumably Schumacher’s pairing is meant to address that concern – though whether it does so convincingly is another question.

  2. fcrary says:
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    I don’t see how Senators Nelson’s and Rubio’s opinions will make a difference. Most senators don’t care very much about NASA, and they are going to be concerned with other things. The Republicans already have an image problem, with suggestions that they can’t even run the country while controlling the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Similarly, the Democrats can’t oppose every presidential nomination, or they’ll look totally obstructionist. On issues which almost no one cares about, I suspect Mr. Trump won’t have a hard time getting things through Congress.

    • kcowing says:
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      All it takes is one senator to put a hold on a nomination.

      • fcrary says:
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        I’m not sure what you mean by that. Clearly, any one random senator wouldn’t be able to prevent confirmation. 48 Democratic senators, voting as a block, couldn’t prevent confirmation of a Supreme Court justice.

        One Senator, in the right position could. That would be the Majority Leader, since he schedules the vote by the full Senate and can schedule it for “never.” I don’t see him blowing political capitol on this. Actually, I don’t see him caring enough to even think about it.

        One Senator chairing the appropriate committee (e.g. Sen. Nelson) could hold things up. But I think he’d be under tremendous pressure from his party not to. NASA isn’t the only issue he cares about, and being so blatantly obstructionist to his own party’s President wouldn’t help him on other issues.

        • GentleGiant says:
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          According to Senate rules any senator can put a hold on a nomination. Doing so prevents the nomination from being voted on by the full Senate. It takes a three-fifths cloture vote to remove a hold.

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s ridiculous. If you mean a filibuster, that’s nothing more than a temporary annoyance (potentially an extremely temporary one) unless that Senator has the support of 39 other senators. In addition, as the Democratic party found out during Justice Gorsuch’s confirmation, a simple majority can change those rules and make a filibuster endable by a simple majority.

            I strongly suspect Senator Nelson will drag things out in the committee hearings, and vote against Mr. Bridenstine’s confirmation. Some Democrats will probably vote against confirmation for different reasons. But I don’t see any way a majority of the Senate (or even the 40 needed to sustain a filibuster) would take a political hit over a NASA administrator. The Democrats did so over a Supreme Court nomination, but even that was debated. The NASA administrator just isn’t in the same league.

          • anwatkins says:
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            Actually, Senator Reid destroyed the filibuster for presidential nominees a few years ago. McConnell finished the filibuster for Supreme Court justices this year. Regardless, currently there is no filibuster than can be used for a presidential nominee.

          • Richard Malcolm says:
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            A hold is not absolute, however. Ultimately the decision to honor a hold request, and for how long, rests with the majority leader. It also depends on exactly what sort of hold we’re talking about.

            A hold can delay a nomination; but if it is of sufficient importance to the majority leader, he maintains the right to offer a motion to proceed to consider. And then it becomes a question of how hard the minority caucus and minority leader want to fight over it.

            In a case like NASA Administrator, I can see some delaying tactics, but not a full-blown fight – not unless something really problematic emerges about Bridenstine. Democrats have bigger game to hunt.

          • sunman42 says:
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            How about Bridenstine being a climate change denier? Dos that constitute “problematic?”

          • Richard Malcolm says:
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            I really haven’t followed Bridenstine on that, so I really can’t say. I haven’t seen anything in the news suggesting it is becoming a critical issue for key senators yet (you figure many Democrats will vote against him anyway, but that’s not fatal per se. Whereas Rubio voting against him is a problem.)

            If it is as bad as you say it could be disqualifying for any position overseeing climate science in any significant way. But while NASA does run NOAA birds, their substantive oversight is pretty minor. If he denies the Theory of Gravity or the First Law of Thermodynamics, we have a problem.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            Not with this Congress.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            So does the President for that matter. If something really problematic emerges that will crowd his pet issues out of the public dialog, he’ll just thank the nominee for their willingness to help and ask them to claim family considerations to step back out of the lime light.
            That one Senator can cause a delay is just so that folks have time to look more closely at a problem. If the problem is as weak as the issues that Nelson and Rubio have brought up (NASA hasn’t been influenced by politics yet?…Really?) then no one is going to want to spend any time on it with tax reform, North Korea, and the Dream Kids on the agenda.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      So true.

      Both of our Senators could have done so much for Florida; we had a hell of a head start, after all. Sen Shelby did his job, as did Sen. Mikulski. The proliferation of alternative launching sites speaks for itself.

    • Richard Malcolm says:
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      Florida senators matter a little more when it’s the NASA chief’s nomination.

      It may not be fatal – neither has said for sure that they will vote against – but it matters more than if an Idaho senator throws a snit.

      • hikingmike says:
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        I kind of think that if an Idaho senator had a strong opinion, then that would hold some weight just because there is a greater chance he would care about our country’s future in space and that would be his/her main motive. But that’s just me, here caring about space sitting in Illinois 🙂

  3. Phil Willems says:
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    I don’t see the hypocrisy here. Lots of people go into space who aren’t ‘space professionals’, and they don’t go on to administer the nation’s space policy. Only one person is the head of NASA, and that person does. I think there certainly can be an argument over whether a politician should head NASA, and Ben Nelson could be on the wrong side of that argument. But his statement is not inconsistent with his having gone into space.

  4. Richard Brezinski says:
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    Last couple of Administrators were space professionals and were complete and total disasters.

    The manned space program is in shambles as a direct result. No one has ever heard of ‘Mission to Mars’? An Orion and SLS which no one can afford and which has no meaningful mission. No Shuttle. Even ISS is not doing well because of lack of marketing. The only hope for manned space is someone like Elon Musk bypassing NASA.

    Last reasonably competent Administrator was O’Keefe. Maybe they could get him back? There are a very few competent politicians out of the military, perhaps, General Abrahamson who was excellent for the Air Force and excellent as a NASA AA. Maybe Kevin Chilton would be a modern equivalent? Top current NASA people would be at the bottom of the list. Bridenstine is unproven; give him some competent outside of NASA support. NASA has all the technical experts it needs. What they are missing is competent leadership.

    What they need at the top is someone who knows how to lead and how to play with the people who control politics. More money-that is unlikely under any circumstance. Maybe someone who can do something with what they already get?

    • SouthwestExGOP says:
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      Agree here. An example: Charlie Bolden had a tremendously impressive resume – pilot, Shuttle Commander, military, etc etc etc but anyone who is familiar with his visit to JSC after he bought off on the (disastrous) way that Constellation was cancelled will know that he was the wrong person in the wrong place.

      I even agree that Constellation needed MAJOR revision – but the way that the cancellation was done and the way the decision transmitted showed that we had the wrong people in charge.

      Sean O’Keefe seems to have been the only effective Administrator in recent history.

      So “space professional” needs to be tempered with “able to herd cats” and “able to get money for projects which the combined workforce actually supports” so that we don’t waste the talents of our combined workforce on projects that are going no where.

      • Bill Housley says:
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        There were a lot of space advocates that didn’t like Constellation…and NASA folks who didn’t like it and thought they were being muzzled. But I think the ham-fisted way that it was done was the work of Obama…who thought incorrectly that he and and Bolden were actually in charge of NASA direction.

        • SouthwestExGOP says:
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          Bill – so the President and the Administrator are NOT in charge of the direction that NASA takes?? Who is – the Tennessee Valley Authority? The National Park Service???

          Those are humorous choices because of course the President and Administrator are in charge of the direction. Next you will say that the Secretary of Defense is actually in charge of the US Department of the Interior or something.

          Maybe your comment is a misunderstanding of how the SLS got started? But that was the choice of vehicle more than the direction.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            The President and Administrator are on charge of and even responsible for the overall direction at NASA, and they can influence it, more or less, but I don’t think that they directly dictate that direction. I think the money does that.

          • SouthwestExGOP says:
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            You think this and think that – when you figure it out please come back.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            What I meant to say, and perhaps I said it badly, is that they are held responsible for things over which they have only peripheral control. Like a drone in a hurricane.

  5. Jeff2Space says:
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    Oh come now Keith, we all know every single NASA payload specialist assignment was completely legit and was never influenced by politics or foreign diplomacy. /s

  6. Vladislaw says:
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    This is hilarious coming from Nelson. President Obama wanted Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration to be NASA administrator and Nelson instead offered up Bolden, who flew the Shuttle that took him to space. Nelson wants an administrator that will support the “monster rocket” nothing more.

    “Obama Asks Retired Air Force General to Run NASA”

    https://www.space.com/6309-

    • kcowing says:
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      Agreed.

    • Richard Malcolm says:
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      Undoubtedly that’s Nelson’s main objective (with a side helping of the usual partisanship).

      But Bridenstine is on record as fully supporting SLS and Orion anyway. It is hard to read the Bridenstine/Schumacher nomination pairing as being anything but good news for the Program of Record.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        It’s impossible to imagine any nominees not fully support the POR.

        Certainly this was a litmus test; Congress isn’t looking for leadership over at NASA. It’s lapdogs they want.

  7. SouthwestExGOP says:
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    Got any evidence or are you just spreading innuendo??