WASHINGTON (States News Service) - As the Senate version of the NASA budget speeds its way through the approval process, Rep. James Walsh (R-New York), indicated that the House-Senate conference will still be a hurdle for full restoration of the agency's funding.
"I'm interested in helping to resolve the budgetary problems with NASA," Walsh said in an interview with States News Service today. "But what the level of funding is still has to be decided."
Walsh, the chairman of the House VA-HUD Appropriations subcommittee, drafted the House version of the spending bill that included a $900 million cut to NASA. The Senate version, adopted by subcommittee yesterday, gives the agency all the money that the President asked for, $13.6 billion.
"We knew that we would have to find additional funds for NASA, and this may help," Walsh said. "It's too early to tell how this is going to get resolved in conference."
The Senate version of the bill is about $1 billion larger than the House version, nearly all of it lying in NASA funding. The differences represent different strategies taken by Republican leaders in both chambers on how to get the bills passed.
GOP leaders in both chambers made room in their budget plans for the $792 billion tax cut, sent to the President yesterday, and destined for a Presidential veto.
"Its failure does free up some money," Walsh said, "there isn't any unanimity as to how much." He said some of that money could go to the VA-HUD spending bill.
During the floor debate on the spending bill, Walsh repeatedly assured NASA supporters like Rep. David Weldon (R-Florida) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) that he would "work with them" on NASA funding as the bill went to conference.
Support for NASA is stronger on the Democratic side, but several key Republicans, many with NASA centers in their districts, have also come forward for the agency. They include Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) who sits on the subcommittee which drafted the bill, and Majority Whip Rep. Tom Delay in the
House, also of Texas, who will sit on the House-Senate conference at his request.
The Senate subcommittee's ranking member, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) said yesterday the conference members are also going to have to take the president's priorities into account if they want to avoid a veto.
"I think it will be a House-Senate-Administration conference," she said.
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