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Congress and Bridenstine's Nomination

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 1, 2017
Congress and Bridenstine's Nomination

Rubio, Nelson blast Trump’s NASA pick, Politco
“Florida’s senators are voicing opposition to President Trump’s pick for NASA administrator, Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstine, saying a “politician” shouldn’t lead the nation’s space program. Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Bill Nelson wouldn’t say if they’d buck the president and vote against Bridenstine, who was nominated Friday. But they suggested the GOP congressman’s political past would needlessly spark a partisan fight in the Senate that could ultimately damage NASA.”
Bridenstine Nominated To Be NASA Administrator, SpacePolicyOnline.com
“Bridenstine’s nomination must first be approved by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and its Space, Science, and Competitiveness Subcommittee. The full committee is chaired by Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) and the subcommittee by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). The top Democrat on the full committee is Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and on the subcommittee, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts). Assuming it clears the committee, a vote of the full Senate then will be required. A single Senator can delay a vote on a nomination. CSF’s tweet suggests that Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) may not yet be convinced that Bridenstine is the right person for the job.”

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

15 responses to “Congress and Bridenstine's Nomination”

  1. Lawrence Wild says:
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    <sarcasm>Yeah, we shouldn’t have a NASA administrator who would introduce politics into the NASA process, because gosh it’s been so free of that up till now.</sarcasm>
    Perhaps what they really fear is someone with enough independent connections outside the normal crew of space shepherds on the hill that there might be a little more balance to the NASA mission portfolio and center roles. Maybe they are afraid of someone who might be an effective advocate on
    the Commercial spaceflight side of things rather than the traditional
    space/defense contractor side. Somebody who knows how the hill really
    works and has some friends still there that could upset a lot of folks that
    feel they have a fiefdom. Or perhaps it’s something else.
    In any case when I hear a politician decrying politics in a government agency my BS meter starts to peg. Politicize the government, oh horrors! It’s as if they are channeling Claude Rains “I’m shocked, shocked to find there is politics going on in here.”

    • fcrary says:
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      You mean, perhaps, that a good choice for a NASA administrator would be someone like James Webb.

    • mfwright says:
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      This makes sense, as many others have said you need someone (lawyer/bean counter/bureaucrat) that knows how the system works, that is able to get money and keep the money flowing. Deputies and associates decide the technical how that money is spent.

      However, I’m concerned is trend of Trump choices have common theme of anti-science, austerity is gospel, confrontational to others outside Trump’s circle of business, and other policies that hurt the American voter.

      • fcrary says:
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        I hope this doesn’t have an “in the good old days” flavor, but… When James Webb was the NASA Administrator, the Deputy Administrator was Hugh Dryden, an aeronautical engineer before he ended up in management.

      • hikingmike says:
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        Yeah, that reminds me of Trump’s Interior Secretary Zinke confronting the 2 Alaska senators that voted against the latest health insurance reform, basically threatening them. There is a ton of federal land in Alaska of course. Like it would be a shame for your state to lose favor for future consideration in projects and anything.

        Will Trump have the NASA administrator calling the Senators from anywhere there is a NASA center or major space industry supported by NASA whenever there is a disagreement with them? He certainly could, and that covers a bunch of states (let’s see – Texas, Florida, California, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia for centers, and tack on Utah, Nevada, and wherever Boeing and LM have a presence as well). That’s how he does things as we’ve seen publicly, and I wonder how much of that goes on that we don’t see. Is Bridenstine the kind of guy that would do that for him?

  2. Michael Spencer says:
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    Well, golly, wouldn’t ya think that the WH would, you know, ASK the Florida senators? Wouldn’t they have submitted a list of names?

    Mr. Rubio is on Appropriations. Mr, Nelson, more directly, is on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Good places to have good friends one would think.

    On the other hand, it is also true that neither of our Senators has been a very good space advocate.

  3. Yale S says:
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    This is the man who will be in charge of NASA’s climate monitoring responsibilities:
    Bridenstine: “There is no credible scientific evidence that greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations, including carbon dioxide, affect global climate. I oppose regulating greenhouse gases.”

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Yep. Hard to understand the enthusiasm for him.

    • fcrary says:
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      To be fair, he did say that in 2012. Some people who were doubtful, five or ten years ago, have changed the position on the subject as more and more data piled up. The quote still sounds extreme, but I’d be interested in hearing more recent comments from Mr. Bridenstine.

      • GentleGiant says:
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        No honest, open-minded person with even the slightest curiosity about the world would have said that in 2012. Saying such a thing 5, 10, even 20 years ago would have been dishonest and intellectually bankrupt even then.

        • fcrary says:
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          An open minded person should, at most, have said “no absolutely compelling evidence” rather than no “credible” evidence. But I object to claims that scientific results are absolute truth or that the general consensus of the scientific community is automatically something only an idiot would disagree with.

          In this case, I have always considered the debate about natural versus man-made climate change to be overly politicized and poorly framed. This is not a yes/no or 0% versus 100% issue. It’s dead obvious that human activities have contributed. But, unless you want to claim that natural processes would have kept global temperatures level or reduced them, natural factor also contributed. Maybe just at the 1% or 10% level, maybe at the 50% level. But this all or none rhetoric just makes the science look bad and harm our ability to do something about the problem.

          • Yale S says:
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            Reread his comment. “There is no credible scientific evidence that greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations, including carbon dioxide, affect global climate.”
            That was horse manure in 1922 or 2012 or today.

          • fcrary says:
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            Well, in 1922, there was so little data on the global climate that such a statement would not have been absurd. But I see your point.

            His statement, regardless of my scientific objections, is flawed because it is so certain and absolute. If he had prefaced it with “As far as I know…” I wouldn’t see anything too wrong with it, and see the possibility of changing his mind.

            On the other hand, politicians like to project certainty, regardless of their actual feeling, and that might be what he was doing. I’ve seen quite a few scientists do the same thing in press releases and press conferences. So I don’t think we really know how much weight to put on this guy’s statement from 2012. Hopefully very little.

  4. muomega0 says:
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    Bridenstine, with no scientific credentials, has shown he will lie to his constituents about climate change to protect oil interests, and used politics to demand an apology from Obama for funding climate change research.

    The legacy of climate change deniers is to destroy our Planet Earth at a cost of trillions of dollars for short term political and oil interest gain. Is he the same ‘leader’, with “NASA prestige”, who will advocate that its okay to continue with CO2 emissions, paving over wetlands, and building home in lakes behind inadequate levies, because there are no long term effects of climate change? Will he cite ‘the climate denying scientists John Christie and Roy Spencer, who manipulated the satellite data‘ to have night time temperatures cooler than the day violating all the physics? He has shown he is not qualified for an entry level position.

  5. Jack Burton says:
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    Well if you want more money for NASA and national dedication to it’s HSF goals then perhaps a person that has some pull within congress is an advantage since he IS congress.