White House Concerns Over Senate Budget Stance on NASA
White House: NASA bill would raise costs, cause delays
“The Obama administration is concerned that a provision in a NASA funding bill being debated on the Senate floor this week would add costs and delays to the program that will replace the mothballed space shuttle with private rockets. As part of a $17.9 billion spending bill to fund NASA in fiscal year 2015, the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month approved the $805 million for the commercial crew program that will ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.”
White House Statement of Policy H.R. 4660 – NASA Excerpt
“Commercial Crew Program. The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for the Commercial Crew program, but has concerns about language that would seek to apply accounting requirements unsuitable for a firm, fixed-price acquisition, likely increasing the program’s cost and potentially delaying its schedule.”
Nelson Wants To Revisit Senate Appropriations Committee’s Stricter Commercial Crew Oversight, SpaceNews
“Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) took to the Senate floor June 18 and tapped the brakes on a powerful appropriator’s plan to subject NASA’s commercial crew program to strict federal accounting standards the agency waived when it solicited bids for crew transportation in November.”
Who else can be that spanner in the works but Senator Richard ‘The Shill’ Shelby, R-AL. Any chance of him getting impeached for being owned by the B-L-M mega corporation?
As a general rule, your constituents don’t vote you out of office because you keep bringing big jobs programs into your state. This is a long-standing barrier to progress for NASA: provincial, short-term interests trump national, long-term ones.
Consider Frank Wolf (Who’s retiring next year, bless his heart) who represents a mere 650,000 voters, and all the damage he does on a national level from that position.
IIRC the NASA funding bill is part of a larger bill which covers other significant spending areas. Will the Senate risk holding up these other areas funding on something worth a measly $800 or so million. Doubtful but I’d love for them to do it.
Cheers.
White House: “NASA Bill will increase costs, cause delays.”
Sen. Shelby: “They catch on pretty quick fo’ a bunch o’ Yankees…”
Please call Senator Nelson’s office (202-224-5274) and tell him you believe it is critical to remove the Shelby Poison Pill amendments. These are in the Senate Report accompanying S2437, and apply both to Commercial Crew and to Commercial Cargo:
http://beta.congress.gov/co…
REPORT To accompany S. 2437
Commercial Crew:
Without the proper foundation and necessary requirements for certified cost and pricing data, NASA will have no insight into ongoing cost growth that could jeopardize the viability of the program.
In order for NASA and Congress to have the appropriate
level of transparency to ensure that the cost of the program is
in line with the activities undertaken and that it does not
grow exponentially, the Committee directs NASA to maintain FAR
15.403-4, related to certified cost and pricing data for prime
contractors, for any contracts entered into to support the
development of a commercial crew vehicle. Further, NASA shall
require quarterly reports to be submitted to NASA and the
Committee that detail the funds invested by NASA and by the
awardees during the previous quarter and cumulatively,
including legacy launch systems that may be integrated with the
crew vehicle.
Commercial Cargo Resupply:
…..
As NASA begins soliciting participants for the second round of cargo resupply missions, certified cost and pricing data should be required and made available to NASA.
The Shelby Amendment requires that SpaceX provide “certified cost data” directly to the Senate Committee, so they can control it themselves, not just to NASA. And it requires the same data on the entire Falcon program, not just the Dragon!