WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce Committee voted April 30 to advance Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA administrator to the full Senate, bringing him one step from confirmation.
The committee voted 19 to 9 to favorably report Isaacman’s nomination, three weeks after he testified before the committee. That allows the nomination to go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote, yet to be scheduled.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the committee, said he supported the nomination after getting assurances that Isaacman would follow past authorization bills that require NASA to establish a “sustained human presence” on or around the moon and not turn the agency’s focus exclusively towards human missions to Mars.
“Our path to predominance in space begins with the Artemis missions. Mr. Isaacman acknowledges this,” Cruz said.
“For Isaacman, NASA can pursue Martian objectives, yes, absolutely. But these should not detract from the near-term objective of returning to the moon first,” he said. “Given this explicit commitment, I support Mr. Isaacman’s confirmation.”
The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), also said she supported the nomination, citing Isaacman’s support for the current Artemis architecture, such as use of the Space Launch System and two lunar lander developers. That outweighed concerns she mentioned about potential budget cuts to NASA.
“A commitment to keeping on to the moon mission is the key requirement that we have to have in this position,” she said. “Mr. Isaacman seems to be committed to the current plan for both lander redundancy and Space Launch System, and returning to the moon as fast as possible.”
The nine senators who voted against advancing the nomination were all Democrats: Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Ed Markey (Mass.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), John Fetterman (Penn.) and Lisa Blunt…
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