Tom not-so-Swift: DeLay's got his eye on NASA

by Plutonium Page

He even left me with a copy of his latest book, Space Vehicle Design… second edition.

You wanna talk about a page-turner?

I just got to his section on “Gravity-gradient stabilization,” and even though I have no idea what he’s talking about… I’m riveted!

-- Rep. Tom DeLay, in a speech at NASA, commenting on a book by NASA administrator Dr. Michael Griffin.

Of course Tom doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Tom's just thinking about money, as usual. He's rubbing his hands together and wondering, "What can NASA do for me?"

Look below the fold to find out.

Predictably, DeLay's enthusiasm for Bush's NASA plans is self-serving:

Who's in charge of the US space program? There's the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, for one, and of course the President--and also Tom DeLay.

The scandal-scented Republican House majority leader has invaded NASA, grabbing its biggest outpost and taking a rather personal interest in the agency's budget. He has established himself as the go-to guy on Capitol Hill regarding NASA. And given the way Washington works, this means he can influence how the agency carves up its $16 billion pie and how it resolves critical policy debates--matters of keen interest to aerospace and military contractors, who often look to make contributions to friendly or feared legislators. Fans of NASA might cheer DeLay's involvement. "It's always to the benefit of the agency to have someone in the leadership interested in the agency's budget," says Wesley Huntress Jr., an associate administrator of NASA in the 1990s. "And Tom DeLay is very interested in NASA." But anyone concerned about good government and effective and appropriate budgeting decisions ought to fret about The Hammer's sway over NASA. "With NASA changing its spending priorities to support President Bush's vision for space exploration that will return humans to the moon and take them to Mars, there will be plenty of money going to start-up companies with no record of producing hardware, and there will be no way to measure results," says John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org. "DeLay, if he wants, will be in charge of a free-for-all, with money flowing everywhere--mainly flying in the direction he directs." NASA, then, is another potential source of money and power for DeLay--if he survives his ethics troubles.

After the infamous Texas redistricting in 2003, the Johnson Space Center (JSC) wound up in TX-22 (DeLay's district), making DeLay the JSC representative in the House. That's quite convenient for both Bush and DeLay. Neither man will take "no" for an answer on decreasing NASA's budget:

The appropriations bill covering NASA eventually was incorporated into an omnibus spending measure. And in December DeLay threatened to block that legislation unless NASA received the full funding proposed by Bush. According to Democrats on the appropriations committee, to accommodate DeLay the committee had to apply a nearly 1 percent cut to other programs. This meant slashing $456 million in education, $225 million in veterans' healthcare and $61 million in scientific research. DeLay didn't mind. He held firm and got his way. This approach to budgeting was unprecedented. "Usually the House and the Senate come up with their own numbers for NASA and then compromise at a level in between," says Louis Friedman, executive director of the Planetary Society. "In this case, DeLay intervened, and the final number came out higher than the House or Senate level." DeLay later boasted during a visit to the JSC, "I wouldn't schedule the [spending] bill [for a vote] until NASA was taken care of."

DeLay had single-handedly reworked the federal budget in NASA's favor. Then in February, the Republican leadership reorganized the House Appropriations Committee. Authority for NASA was yanked from the subcommittee on veterans and housing and handed to the subcommittee in charge of the State and Justice departments. This was a promotion for NASA. It was also seen on Capitol Hill as an act of revenge. The reorganization plan, said David Obey, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, was "simply payback. House majority leader Tom DeLay is retaliating for cuts the Republican-controlled VA-HUD appropriations subcommittee made to the NASA budget request."

(Bold emphases mine).

There are a number of reasons that space exploration and research are important. However, the point that John Pike makes in the article, that "there will be plenty of money going to start-up companies with no record of producing hardware, and there will be no way to measure results" is key. The end of the article sums it up perfectly:

"This is not just about DeLay bringing money to his district," Pike says. "It's national. If you want a contract with NASA, who are you going to go to? And we all know how you get DeLay's attention. DeLay must realize this. Over time, the amount of discretionary budget authority available to him could add up to billions."

Billions? DeLay is already in Dutch for taking junkets that cost tens of thousands of dollars. How far might he push the envelope of ethics when real money is at stake? If he retains his power and sticks to his pay-to-play ways, perhaps, as king of NASA, the sky will be DeLay's only limit.

Pretty scary. Let's hope that Major Tom's spaceship never achieves orbit.

Comments

[Meteor Blades]

John Pike is one of my favorite space/defense experts. Thanks for highlighting this piece, Page.

But I gotta disagree with you. I'd be happy to see a few billion dollars spent to send Delay to his new district on the back side of the moon.

[Redshift]

There are a number of reasons that space exploration and research are important.

I'm a big fan of space exploration and research, but unfortunately this administration isn't. Even though they're increasing NASA's budget, their approach is to gut research and scientific projects and spend all the money on grandstanding spectacles like the manned mission to Mars. (Which I suspect, but can't prove, is mainly intended to lay the groundwork to implement Rumsfeld's well-known desire for a military space force.)