Commerce, Justice, Science, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. GIFFORDS. I rise for the purpose of a colloquy with the subcommittee chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned about the reductions from the request recommended for the NASA Constellation program in this appropriations bill. As you know, this bill provides the same level of funding as in the year 2009, and it's almost $600 million less than what the President requested for 2010.

As the Chair of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, I strongly believe that NASA should be given the funding needed to carry out one of the
most important missions, which is exploration. I am very concerned that the levels obtained in this bill will be viewed by the Augustine Human Spaceflight Review Panel as a lack of support for Constellation and for NASA's other human spaceflight programs, programs that have been strongly endorsed, as we've heard by the colloquies here on the floor, on a bipartisan basis in last year's NASA Authorization Act of 2008.

So Chairman Mollohan, is it your view that the Augustine panel should not interpret the House's action today as any weakening of congressional support for the Nation's human spaceflight and exploration programs?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source