Although the Senate and House Space committees voted to give NASA slightly more money than the agency requested, the actual amount will be decided by the appropriations committees. The Republican budget plan calls for cuts in the entire VA-HUD bill in order to meet spending caps agreed upon in 1995, which will probably result in cuts at NASA.
"Their budget request is about $13.5 billion, about the same as last year, but we don't have that much money to spend," said Tim Peterson, a committee aide. A spokesman for subcommittee chair Rep. James Walsh (R-N.Y.), confirmed that NASA would probably not receive full funding, but could not say how big the cut will be.
NASA had no comment, said spokeswoman Beth Schmid.
DeWine, R-Ohio, has placed a hold on the Senate version of the appropriations bill because he has not received a response to a letter sent to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, the senator's spokesman Charlie Boesel said. The letter expressed fears for the future of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. DeWine hopes to remove the hold next week.
"It's still under discussion and we're still working out specific language," Boesel said. "The senator looks forward to removing that, but this is about jobs in Ohio."
The letter, dated June 3, said the senator was "deeply troubled" to learn that Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Ala., was posting job openings and building facilities "to assemble a parallel capability in space and aeropropulsion research" that would essentially duplicate programs already in place at Glenn.
DeWine requested that all programs, personnel, and funding authority transfer back to Glenn. Boesel said the senator held the funding bill to urge Goldin into a swifter response.
"The response to the senators is still being drafted," said NASA spokesman Michael Barakus. "The information that the senator stated, his points that he made, they're being assessed."
Barakus said he did not know how soon the response would be available. Several offices were working on it, he said, because Marshall reports to the Office of Spaceflight and Glenn reports to the Office of Aerospace Technology.
NASA had no comment on any possible plans to shift personnel or shut down the Glenn center, Barakus said.
DeWine sent a second letter on July 20, this one with the signatures of the entire Ohio delegation.
The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the NASA funding bill on August 2.
Spokesmen for the ranking members from both parties of the Senate funding committee said they could not yet speculate as to how much funding NASA would get.
The agency's budget has remained pretty much the same over the past three years, and has declined sharply since 1992 once adjusted for inflation. The 1999 budget of $13.7 billion was slightly more than the
White House's request, Schmid said.
President Clinton released his funding request for NASA when he released his budget plan in February.
NASA's request for 2000 is actually about $87 million smaller than its 1999 budget, and includes a $182 million increase in funding for the International Space Station.
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