WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told a House committee that budget caps forced cuts to agency programs while pleading with them to include money for a space station deorbit vehicle in a supplemental funding bill.
Testifying before the House Science Committee April 30, Nelson repeatedly told members of both parties when asked about cuts in the agency’s 2025 budget proposal in programs ranging from science missions to maintenance of NASA facilities that his hands were tied by overall spending caps.
The caps, in place for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, limit non-defense discretionary spending and were part of a deal enacted nearly a year ago in the Fiscal Responsibility Act to raise the debt ceiling. “These two years, ’24 and ’25, NASA has been cut between the two years $4.7 billion from our original request,” he said. “That’s going to have an effect on some of the contracts at all NASA centers.”
NASA, in its fiscal year 2024 budget request, sought $27.185 billion for the agency and projected requesting $27.729 billion in 2025. NASA received $24.875 billion in the final 2024 appropriations bill enacted in March and is requesting $25.384 billion in 2025, a difference of nearly $4.7 billion from the original projections last year.
Nelson repeatedly returned to those spending caps when asked to reconsider cuts to specific programs, suggesting the only relief will come after the caps expire in fiscal year 2026. “I’m hoping that when you get to ’26, Congress may see the wisdom of some of these programs,” he said.
He called on members, though, to support full funding for the United Stated Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), a spacecraft NASA plans to develop to handle the final deorbiting of the International Space Station at the end of the station’s life, though a supplemental spending bill.
NASA had requested $180 million for USDV in its fiscal 2024 budget request and $109 million for it in the 2025 request….
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