The House Appropriations (HAC) subcommittee that oversees NASA approved Wednesday its fiscal year 2017 draft spending bill that provides $19.5 billion to the civil space agency.
The HAC Commerce, Justice and Science (CJS) subcommittee approved the legislation unanimously via voice vote. The $19.5 billion provided to NASA is $200 million more than the Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) provided, $223 million more than enacted last year and $1.2 billion above the agency’s request.
The bill includes $8 billion for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the same as approved by SAC; $712 million for aeronautics, $111 million more than the SAC-approved version and $739 million for space technology, $53 million more than SAC provided.
The HAC CJS bill provides $4.2 billion for space exploration, $110 million less than SAC provided. The House bill also threw in an extra $50 million for Orion compared to the SAC bill. But the House bill allocated $2 billion for the Space Launch System (SLS), $150 million less than SAC allocated. The House bill also provided not less than $250 million for SLS upper stage development, $50 million less than what Senate appropriators provided. The House bill provides $4.9 billion for space operations, $51 million less than what SAC allocated.
The legislation provides $5.6 billion for NOAA, $100 million less than SAC allocated, $185 million below last year’s enacted level and $268 million below the president’s request. The bill also includes full funding for the continuation of the current Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) weather satellite program and the Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite (GOES) program. The HAC CJS bill slashes funding for NOAA activities like climate research and ocean services.