Senate Commerce Committee Executive and Congress Version - July 15 onwards

[jimgagnon]

Very interesting article on what happenned in the House and why a vote wasn't held today:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40472.html

Frustrating...wish they'd just take the Senate bill and go with it!

Not sure what dog Ohio has in the fight, but California wants to be a full-on space state, and commercial space seems to be the only path available to us. The CA Democrats in both the House and Senate are united along with many Republicans on this.

[psloss]

Very interesting article on what happenned in the House and why a vote wasn't held today:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40472.html

Also illustrates that there are representatives with additional points of view, which we wouldn't necessarily hear from until floor debate and/or votes.

BTW, the Senate is still session, but the House adjourned last night and is in recess until September 14th.

[yg1968]

Very interesting article on what happenned in the House and why a vote wasn't held today:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40472.html

Frustrating...wish they'd just take the Senate bill and go with it!

Not sure what dog Ohio has in the fight, but California wants to be a full-on space state, and commercial space seems to be the only path available to us. The CA Democrats in both the House and Senate are united along with many Republicans on this.

The Glenn research center is involved in a lot of R&D and Technology. So they liked the FY2011 NASA Budget.

[Chris Bergin]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

[DaveJSC]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Great news! Now, that's a sign of intent and the House may align with the Senate. This could really throw out FY2011 for the better plan.

[Chris Bergin]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Great news! Now, that's a sign of intent and the House may align with the Senate. This could really throw out FY2011 for the better plan.

Not to be a negative ninny, but could the President still throw it all out when it arrives at his desk, or are vetos rare?

[JohnF]

So this means the Senate part is done now and they just send it over to the House to  blend theirs and the Senate's together to make the final bill that goes to Obama, are we really that close to getting this over, if so when does the prez sign ?

[Bill White]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Great news! Now, that's a sign of intent and the House may align with the Senate. This could really throw out FY2011 for the better plan.

Not to be a negative ninny, but could the President still throw it all out when it arrives at his desk, or are vetos rare?

Yes he could, however, doing so would consume an enormous amount of political capital.

Especially after unanimous consent by the entire Senate.

[Namechange User]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Great news! Now, that's a sign of intent and the House may align with the Senate. This could really throw out FY2011 for the better plan.

Not to be a negative ninny, but could the President still throw it all out when it arrives at his desk, or are vetos rare?

Sure.  The president can veto any bill coming out of congress.  It's a component of the "check and balances" system.  That said, the white house *supposedly* has endorsed the Senate bill. 

[Namechange User]

Also, anyone know what the amendments were?

[orbitjunkie]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Cool. Also, I read that the House is being called back from recess next week in order to vote on (and pass presumably) a state aid bill the Senate just passed. Question for anyone in the know, like 51D: is there any conceivable chance that House will take up the NASA bill when they are back? Or will they burn up the hallways sprinting back out as soon as the one state aid vote happens? Or am I completely confused about how my own country's government works?

[kraisee]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Awesome news Chris!   Thanks for letting us know.

I'd like to know more about the amendments which were made, because I am hearing on the grape-vine that the House is currently not very far away from a compromise with the Senate bill.   It could be that the ongoing discussions with House members might have been the inspiration for these amendments, so that now the Senate bill is essentially "acceptable" to the House.   Obviously, that all a big "maybe", but it sounds like a plausible reason for the changes.

Ross.

[kraisee]

Not to be a negative ninny, but could the President still throw it all out when it arrives at his desk, or are vetos rare?

The White House is making it very clear behind closed doors that they are strongly in favour of the Senate compromise bill.   It gets them pretty-much everything they wanted in terms of education resources and commercial space flight and it keeps the peace with (and backing of) the Senate at the same time.   That's as good a win-win as anyone ever achieves in politics.

With that in mind, it is unlikely the House will stand resolutely against such a compromise -- they may just hold out for a handful of specific tweaks to make it more friendly to their own members.

I suspect that even if the House does sit again next week, they won't tackle this issue until September -- unless the deals are already worked out behind closed doors and all that remains is just a routine counting of the votes.

I suspect there is more in the pipeline than that though...   Maybe 51D can shed some light?

Ross.

[Chris Bergin]

Waiting on the amendments, but the quote was "minor amendments". If it messed around with HLV etc, I doubt would be minor.

[kraisee]

Agreed Chris.

It is certainly a nail biting time for people like myself, not to mention the thousands of people who's careers depend on this.

Win or Lose, we're going "Into The Fire"* in the next two months.

Ross.

* PS - Another Bab-5 reference

[Bill White]

Waiting on the amendments, but the quote was "minor amendments". If it messed around with HLV etc, I doubt would be minor.

If the amendments messed around with HLV, Richard Shelby would not have agreed to a unanimous consent motion. Right?

[Jeff Bingham]

Also, anyone know what the amendments were?

Just got home...a loooong day!  The amendments were pretty minor, and packaged throughout the day during conversations and negotiations with any Senator wishing to offer amendments, into what is called a "Manager's amendment" which is adopted first as part of the Unanimous Consent request made by the Majority Leader, and then the bill, as this amended, is passed. They include some language that opens up broader competition to eventually get a retired orbiter for display, some pretty tough accountability reporting language (some will consider it micromanaging language) regarding the HLLV and Multi-purpose crew vehicle developments to enable Congress to have a good look under the hood as the HLLV design is solidified and the programs get up and running (or "back up and running" as the case may be); a slight opening of the door for commercial crew development (up to $50m) in FY 2011 IF the required threshold work has been done (Human Rating system clarification, market analysis, procurement process definition, etc.) from within the funding allocated for CCDev in FY 2011. (The bill originally prohibited ANY actual development contracts in FY 2011); a couple of other technical provisions (PayGo language that is pretty much standard for auth bills these days, a word change here or there for clarity, etc.) That's pretty much it.

Hopefully, based on prior discussions between House and Senate committee leadership, this will be the legislative vehicle that the two bodies will use as the basis for "pre-conference" negotiations during the recess and hopefully arrive at a final consensus on language that can simply be inserted by the House as substitute language, passed, sent back to the Senate which can then accept the House amendment, and send it to the White House.  That could be done before the end of September. (After all, NO ONE thought the Senate would pass this bill by UC before the recess, so one could be reasonably comfortable in at least setting that sort of target.)

Bottom line is, this moves the ball a long way down the field towards getting an affirmative and positive policy foundation for NASA's future, especially in the areas of human spaceflight and commercial spaceflight. (and yes, I am biased in that view.)

[e of pi]

Bottom line is, this moves the ball a long way down the field towards getting an affirmative and positive policy foundation for NASA's future, especially in the areas of human spaceflight and commercial spaceflight. (and yes, I am biased in that view.)

I didn't want to get excited without justification, but hearing confirmation of what I thought this meant from someone as close to it as you are....this is great news. Keep doing the work you're doing. It's not just those who are in industry now or are fans now who are rooting you on. As someone who's eying this whole sequence of events with the "what might I be applying for in a few years" view of a college junior, this is also a big step towards a program I'd be excited to work on.

[MP99]

some pretty tough accountability reporting language (some will consider it micromanaging language) regarding the HLLV and Multi-purpose crew vehicle developments to enable Congress to have a good look under the hood as the HLLV design is solidified and the programs get up and running (or "back up and running" as the case may be);

a slight opening of the door for commercial crew development (up to $50m) in FY 2011 IF the required threshold work has been done (Human Rating system clarification, market analysis, procurement process definition, etc.) from within the funding allocated for CCDev in FY 2011. (The bill originally prohibited ANY actual development contracts in FY 2011);

Those amendments seem to be moving in the right direction, too.

Great news re hoped-for consensus with House.

cheers, Martin

[Ben the Space Brit]

Newsflash:

The Senate just passed the Compromise bill - with some minor amendments - by unanimous consent 30 minutes ago. It now goes to the House for the final Senate-House compromise.

Great news! Now, that's a sign of intent and the House may align with the Senate. This could really throw out FY2011 for the better plan.

FWIW, I think that a newly-elected House will be unlikely to want to cause too much disruption to a bill that passed by unanimous consent in the upper house.  New and returned representatives will want to focus on more publicity-generating issues like the economy, national defence and social issues.  The only thing that they want from this is to have photos taken shaking hands with Apollo veterans whilst standing next to a J-246H scale model.

Similarly, I think that the President knows that the coming Congress is going to give him a hard time.  I don't think that he will want to pick an unnecessary fight over something like this.