Earlier today I wrapped up my participation in the Space Exploration Alliance's 2009 Legislative Blitz.
What is the SEA?
The Space Exploration Alliance is an unprecedented partnership of the nation’s premier non-profit space organizations with a combined membership of more than 700,000 people throughout the United States.
Blitz mission:
The overriding theme of our February 2009 visit to Capitol Hill will be that space must be a national priority. An appropriately funded space program will not only provide unprecedented advances in science and technology, but it will also energize and encourage our nation's youth to pursue careers in engineering and science. It will stimulate new growth industries & create thousands of new jobs. We need space, and the vast resources that it offers, to enable us to stimulate our economy, to address the problems of an ever-growing population, and to help us solve the increasing energy needs of our nation and our civilization.
Over the last 2 days, I visited offices of 9 House members & 3 Senators to discuss space policy.
UPDATE: I met with several staff people today and this never came up although it seems to have happened Monday evening -- FY09 Omnibus Budget introduced with $17.8 Billion for NASA:
Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an omnibus FY09 appropriations bill Monday for those agencies whose FY09 budgets had not yet been passed by Congress, including NASA. Those agencies have been operating on a continuing resolution since October 1; that resolution runs through March 6, meaning that Congress is likely to act on this omnibus bill quickly.
Interesting . . .
Working in teams of three or four, ten teams visited about 130 offices of members of the House and Senate. For the most part we met with staff such as Legislative Assistants or the occasional Legislative Director but we also had a handful of face-to-face meetings with actual Representatives and Senators.
Staff level knowledge and interest varied between offices and the level of genuine exchange (give and take) also varied between offices however I definitely learned a great deal by doing this event. One reason I love doing these events is the opportunity to learn not only the sense of Congress regarding space exploration and NASA (from meetings attended with my team and from other participants) but also fascinating tidbits about the larger process itself.
The SEA has been doing these "blitzes" since 2004 and I have personally attended four of the six events, in 2004, 2006, 2008 and now 2009. Looking back over six years of experience, I would say that the most important lesson to be taken away is an appreciation of the bureaucratic inertia that exists within Washington. Inertia makes change difficult and therefore persistence is mission critical. Such inertia (IMHO) arises to a large degree from the information overload each staff member and each legislator faces and therefore a continuing consistent presence is an effective tool for accomplishing change.
As an aside, I strongly believe Energize America or a similar group should initiate volunteer grassroots visits to Congress using the SEA model. Unpaid volunteers are not "lobbyists" and Congressional staff seem to sit up and take notice when ordinary people come to Washington on their own nickel to express their opinion. Anyway, I intend a future diary in an Energize America version of the SEA Blitz.
Authorizations and Appropriations
Per Wikipedia:
Authorization bill
In the United States Congress, an authorization bill is a proposed public law that permits the federal government to carry out various functions and programs. Authorization bills are generally contrasted with appropriations bills, which are laws that provide funding for discretionary programs that are already authorized; for the federal government to legally carry out an action, it must both be authorized and have money available to fund any expenditures needed to act.
In 2005, a Republican controlled Congress passed (and President Bush signed) the 2005 NASA Authorization Act that most space advocates believed was a fairly good bill.
Despite the favorable language, money to carry out that bill was not appropriated. What are appropriation bills?
An appropriation bill or running bill is a legislative motion (bill) which authorizes the government to spend money. It is a bill that sets money aside for specific spending.[1] In most democracies, approval of the legislature is necessary for the government to spend money.
In other words, NASA was given a robust mandate but was not given the money needed to perform that mandate. In 2008 another Authorization Act was passed (this time by a Democratically controlled Congress) and signed by President Bush but again insufficient money was allocated to achieve that mandate, this time due to the budget stand off and that beast known as the continuing resolution.
What is a continuing resolution?
A continuing resolution is a type of appropriations legislation used by the United States Congress to fund government agencies if a formal appropriations bill has not been signed into law by the end of the Congressional fiscal year. The legislation takes the form of a joint resolution, and provides funding for existing federal programs at current or reduced levels.
* * *
Standoffs between the President and Congress or between political parties, elections, and more-urgent legislative matters complicate the budget process frequently, making the continuing resolution a common occurrence in American government. They allow the government to take its time making difficult fiscal decisions, while maintaining a level of service that is nearly identical to that found during typical operations.
Federal agencies are disrupted, though, by the periods of reduced funding. With non-essential operations suspended, many agencies are forced to interrupt research projects, training programs, or other important functions. Its impact on day-to-day management can be severe, costing some employees the equivalent of several months time to focus on increased bureaucratic haggling and paperwork.
Continuing resolutions have had a significant harmful impact on NASA in the context of enhanced and enlarged mission statements combined with insufficient funding to perform those mandates. Under a C.R. funding remains flat, even if an Authorization Bill calls for additional programs. Also, if stand-alone bills are offered to provide funding outside of a C.R. accusations are made that such funding is an "earmark" and even if there are good arguments that the earmark label is false, members are reluctant to give political opponents potential ammunition.
My personal opinion is that a solid majority of Congress (both R & D) support more money for NASA but given the budget stand-off and the extreme partisanship now in play, obtaining that additional funding is close to impossible (perhaps until we get to our first Obama budget, to be announced at any moment, but not effective until FY10).
One overused metaphor for Congress is "herding cats" but perhaps a better metaphor is a speeding freight train or ocean liner in which the folks on the bridge or in the cab are too busy fighting each other to bother steering the vessel. So we speed along under continuing resolution with NO ONE driving the train.
In such a context (and given the continuing presence of the "ghost of Griffin) making course changes at NASA is currently very difficult, even if many in Congress desire those changes.
In summary, in January 2004 President Bush gave a pretty speech about space and thereafter steadfastly refused to fund his so-called vision.
Obama and Space Exploration
Democratic staff on Capitol Hill are eagerly (and nervously) awaiting guidance from President Obama regarding NASA. Very soon (perhaps today or tomorrow) a "top line" budget number for NASA's FY10 budget should be released. A detailed budget is due out in early April.
We continue to await a new NASA Administrator nominee (again, perhaps imminent) and President Obama is said to favor the creation of a Space Council adding another layer to the management of space policy. With those developments pending, folks on the Hill are in a "wait & see" mode which makes it easier to focus attention on non-NASA matters.
But with Lori Garver heading up the transition team and George Whitesides taking a position within NASA there is guarded optimism that President Obama's space policy shall be good news for space advocates.
Underfunded mandates
Underfunded mandates have left NASA hurting. The need to replace the space shuttle is pressing and God forbid we lose another one while we mess around working on a replacement. But not enough money has been appropriated. Therefore, everything else has been slashed. Advanced concepts, robotic missions and even outreach and education.
Constellation has distorted NASA just as a weight lifter who overworks certain large muscles and neglects the smaller muscles that balance out the human body. Fortunately, President Obama has expressed his recognition of that problem. What is unknown, but hoped for, is that the top-line NASA budget number is large enough to avoid Peter robbing Paul.
Specific Blitz Items
We called for full funding at 2008 NASA Authorization Act levels. In other words, we want Congress to give NASA as much money as Congress itself said NASA should be getting.
We called for immediate funding of COTS-D (the crew transfer component) so that American carrier rockets can start carrying crew to ISS as soon as possible. COTS-D will be like a Chevy Volt used to head to the corner grocery (ISS) while Orion is the Ford Expedition used to go to the Moon and Mars (longer road trips).
We called for an ISS technology demonstration of space solar power. ISS has substantial power from its solar arrays and therefore can beam enough power to a test facility to generate meaningful levels of engineering research regarding space solar power. Even the most die-hard SSP advocates I met agreed SSP is at a Technology Readiness Level TRL of "4" and the proposed experiment could move that to a "5"
I remain a skeptic that space solar power can feed electricity into the commercial grid at competitive rates however I can enthusiastically support funding experiments to move SSP from TRL 4 to TRL 5 and I am persuaded that SSP offers a genuine opportunity to provide power to our military in off grid locations. Lets do the TRL 4 --> TRL 5 experiments and see where we are at.
Ares 1 & 5 and ESAS
In my opinion, Congress shall not de-rail the ESAS train. This topic never came up in ANY discussion and the SEA did not include it in their talking points. But after all, that is more an Executive Branch decision and any lobbying by the House and Senate shall be done under the radar and not discussed openly.
I spent considerable time with folks (fellow blitzers) working on Ares 1 at Huntsville Alabama and the momentum and bureaucracy is moving in favor of continuation of ESAS. Also, the "ghost of Griffin" has not been eradicated. If we are to change course, Obama shall be the guy to do that and until he tells us his choice for Administrator and his vision for the Space Council we shall remain in the dark, on that.
That is enough for now. I'm at the hotel bar eating supper and shall be on-line for maybe an hour then its off to the airport after an exhausting but very interesting time in our nation's capitol.