SPACE.com -- Surprise Bipartisan Support for NASA Budget in Congress

House Democrat Turns on NASA

White House Vows To Fight NASA Budget Cuts

The NASA Budget and Congress - A Guide to the Players

NASA Budget Status: $1 Billion Still Missing


	Surprise Bipartisan Support for NASA Budget in Congress By Jonathan Lipman Special to space.com posted: 05:48 pm ET 08 September 1999

WASHINGTON (States News Service) -- A bipartisan coalition of seven members of Congress promised today to vote against a house spending bill containing a nearly $1 billion cut in NASA funding, and promised to propose a measure on Thursday to restore all

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) also told States News Service that President

Clinton will "absolutely" veto the bill if it contains NASA cuts.

The House began debate on the NASA budget, part of the VA-HUD appropriations bill, on Wednesday afternoon. The house will vote on several amendments that either drain or add money to the NASA budget late Wednesday night. A final vote is expected late Wednesday or Thursday morning.

"Tomorrow, I intend to offer a restoration of the $924 million, subject to a point of order or not," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said. House rules prohibit additions to spending bills once they leave the committee.

Connie Morella (R-Maryland) joined an otherwise democratic press conference to say she will vote against the bill, and said, "there are others on my side of the aisle who feel similarly about these cuts."

Sub-committee chairman James Walsh (R-New York) and ranking member Alan Mollohan (D-West Virginia) "have done the best they can with the terrible allocation they were given," Morella said, echoing a statement made repeatedly by members on both sides of the aisle. "These caps need to be removed."

The house spending bills are being written under budget caps imposed in 1997. There is widespread hope that the Senate will decide to remove the cuts when it writes the VA-HUD appropriation bill.

"The senate does not seem to have that hard cut factor that's in the house," Morella said.

However, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said that Lott is "working very hard to pass these bills within the caps."

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