AAS Public Policy Blog

Tune in to C-SPAN tomorrow morning, because H.Con.Res. 375, honoring the goal of the International Year of Astronomy, is scheduled for floor time. You can see the full House schedule (PDF link) via the House Majority Leader’s site.

Update It should be taken up around 10:45AM, but that’s an estimate. These sort of bills pass by voice vote, so it will go by quickly.

Update II The resolution was taken up and passed by voice vote under suspension of the rules.
C-SPAN has a nifty archive site of today’s events. You can see the IYA resolution pass here. Unfortunately the CSPAN flash player isn’t embedable, or I’d have the video here on the post. Any web gurus out there who can figure out how to capture this video into another format (C-SPAN footage of the Congress is in the public domain), let me know.

Update III I have to say I’m impressed with the C-SPAN site. But they seem to prefer to chop up the segments by speaker, and the links include start and stop timecodes, which is why the clip may have stopped before Rep. Giffords finished speaking. I believe I have tweaked the link above so you can view through the end of the debate now.

That said, you can also view the segment by speaker, with transcript.

• Rep. Lampson (D-TX)
• Rep. Feeney (R-FL)
• Rep. Giffords (D-AZ)

The AAS is very grateful to Rep. Giffords and her office for sponsoring and helping move this resolution forward, to the staff of the House Science and Technology committee, and to Rep. Lampson and Rep. Feeney for their kind words and support on the floor.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) introduced H. Con. Res 375 to the House last week, a concurrent resolution honoring the International Year of Astronomy and encouraging the public to attend IYA activities. You can read resolution text here.

The compromise supplemental funding bill does indeed include money for science. Specifically:

• NASA - The amended bill includes $62,500,000 for Science, Aeronautics and Exploration.
• NSF - Research and Related Activities - The amended bill includes $22,500,000 for Research and Related Activities, of which $5,000,000 shall be available solely for activities authorized by section 7002(b)(2)(A)(iv) of Public Law 110-69. This is for the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCOR.
• NSF Education And Human Resources - The amended bill includes $40,000,000 for Education and Related Activities of which $20,000,000 is for section 10 of the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 1862n–1) and $20,000,000, is for activities authorized by section 10A of the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002 (42 U.S.C. 1862n–1a). This is the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program
• DOE - Science - The amended bill includes an additional $62,500,000 for Science. The Department of Energy is instructed to utilize this funding to eliminate all furloughs and reductions in force which are a direct result of budgetary constraints. Workforce reductions which are a result of completed work or realignment of mission should proceed as planned. This funding is intended to maintain technical expertise and capability at the Office of Science, and may be used for National Laboratory Research and Development including research related to new neutrino initiatives. Funding for research efforts shall not be allocated until the Office of Science has fully funded all personnel requirements.

The bill should be voted on in the House today or Friday, and then will be considered in the Senate.

Updated - You can see the text of the amendments yourself at the Government Printing Office (PDF) view of the Congressional Record.

Also, my favorite part of the Congressional record daily digest for June 20 is this:

Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008: The House agreed to the Senate amendments to the House amendments to the Senate amendment with an amendment, made in order by the rule and printed in H. Rept. 110-720…

That is a lot of amending.

The New York Times has an article and quotes from a joint interview on the three Ph.D. physicists in the US House of Representatives. Those would be Rush Holt, (D-NJ), Vern Ehlers (R-MI), and the the newest addition, Bill Foster (D-IL).

Now we just need an astronomer in there.

The House Science Committee passed HR 6063, the NASA Reauthorization Act, unanimously today.

From the committee’s press release:

H.R. 6063, introduced by Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee Chairman Mark Udall (D-CO), authorizes appropriations for NASA’s activities – science, aeronautics, exploration, education, space operations, inspector general, cross-agency support programs – for Fiscal Year 2009. FY 2009 funding for NASA is $20.21 billion. This bipartisan legislation was originally cosponsored by the Science and Technology Committee’s Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), Ranking Member Ralph Hall (R-TX), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Tom Feeney (R-FL).

A NASA Reauthorization bill has yet to be introduced in the Senate.

In about 10 minutes, markup of the NASA Reauthorization bill occurred in the House Space & Aeronautics subcommittee today. No amendments were considered. The bill moves on to the full House Science Committee.

Markup refers to the process by which a bill is amended, altered, etc. The bill text got through markup without any changes, from my quick scanning of the archived webcast.

No NASA reauthorization bill has yet been introduced in the Senate.

The NASA Reauthorization bill has been introduced in the House. The bill will go through markup in the House Space and Aeronautics subcommittee next week, and then before the full House Science and Technology committee in early June. The Senate is working on its own NASA reauthorization bill, which is likely to appear in the next month or so.

In addition to authorizing (but not actually appropriating) money for NASA, the bipartisan bill defines a broad policy goals and the mission of NASA.

So, read the text of the bill, and see what you think. The committee is open to input from the scientific community to improve and clarify the bill text.

Macroscopic issues dominated today’s votes on the War supplemental bill. Near as I can tell from looking over the bill text (there are 5 versions listed there, so it’s a bit confusing), there is no science money in the House version. The supplemental bypassed the appropriations committees. The major points concern funding new Veterans Benefits, unemployment benefits, and how to pay for them.

Science funding is clearly not on the radar for any of the major decision-makers in this complicated supplemental / war funding process. Amidst all this, the Bush administration has issued veto threats over additional domestic spending in the bill.

The AAS’s own Jack Burns testified in March before the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics at a hearing on NASA’s science programs. While he was speaking as a scientist, not as spokesman for the AAS, his testimony can be read in full at the link below, from the House web site:

Jack Burns’ Testimony before Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics (PDF)

Dr. Burns also replied to several Questions on the Record after his written and oral testimony, which is available here : Response to Questions on the Record - Jack Burns (PDF)