SAS Bulletin – Alert Followup Monday 9/27/10
Today saw one extremely
promising development: Representative
Bart Gordon, Chairman of the House Science Committee and leading spokesman for
the HR.5781 House version NASA Authorization, has conceded that the only
practical way of “..providing certainty, stability, and clarity to the
NASA workforce and larger space community…” is to allow the Senate NASA
Authorization, S.3729, to come up for a vote in the House this week. In this morning’s House Science committee
press release at http://science.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=2926,
he says he “anticipate(s) that the House will consider the Senate version
of the NASA reauthorization on Wednesday.”
But the Senate version still
needs to win a 2/3rds House vote, on the near-certain assumption it will only
be considered under “suspension of the rules” fast-track procedures. That 2/3rds vote is no sure thing. We need one last big push on this.
What To Do
We ask you all to
contact your Representatives one more time.
Go to http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html for their
name (if you still need to) then call their DC office via the US Capitol
switchboard at (202) 224-3121, by Tuesday night if possible and Wednesday
morning at latest. Tell the person you
end up talking to (most likely a staffer or a staffer’s voicemail) the
following: Ask that your Representative
vote for the Senate NASA Authorization (S.3729) when it comes up in the
House. If asked why, tell them one or
more of the following: It’s a good compromise NASA policy, it’s the only
practical way to give NASA clear and timely Congressional direction this year,
it’s the only practical way to avoid more months of expensive and damaging
drift at the agency and/or more months of massive uncertainty for the workers
and organizations involved.
The Future
The very last sentence of
Gordon’s Science Committee press release is “I will continue to advocate to the
Appropriators for the provisions in the Compromise language.” (By “Compromise” here he means the
most recent House bill.) Chairman Gordon
is conceding this battle, but not the war.
Mind, he won’t be around much longer as Chairman of the Science
Committee, since he’s retiring from the Congress after this year. But Bart Gordon is just one member of an
economic/political bloc that, on evidence of how hard this summer’s fight has
been, retains considerable influence. Call it the “NASA Old Guard”, for lack of
a better term… The Old Guard has suffered a setback, but it’s unlikely to
fade away anytime soon. One reason we’ve
considered the subtler differences between the Senate and House version NASA
Authorizations so critical is that they will set much of the future framework
for this fight.
But yes, it does look very
much like we’re on the verge of winning an important victory this week. To the entire wide-ranging coalition we’ve
been working with on this, to everyone who’s read our releases and decided it’s
important enough to help – Yaaaaayyy, team! But in the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, it ain’t over till it’s
over. Specifically, if and only if S.3729
gets that 2/3rds vote, we’ve won a far more favorable battlefield for the next
round of the fight over the future of NASA, whenever it comes. (Most likely not
till after the November elections, and possibly not till next year – we’ll keep
you posted on developments.) Meanwhile, this
week – one last big push!
(Our original Thursday 9/23 Alert is available
at http://www.space-access.org/updates/sau120.html, and our Friday 9/24 Followup Bulletin at http://www.space-access.org/updates/bulletin092410.html. Permalink to this
Bulletin is at http://www.space-access.org/updates/bulletin092710.html)
thanks for your time
Henry Vanderbilt
for Space Access Society
http://www.space-access.org
“Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System”
– Robert A Heinlein, as related by G Harry Stine
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