[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 156 (Tuesday, November 13, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2056]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2620, 
DEPARTMENTS OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 
             INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2002

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                               speech of

                            HON. TIM ROEMER

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, November 8, 2001

  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to the VA-HUD 
bill. My frustrations concerning NASA's international space station and 
its ongoing budget woes have been echoed by the independent Management 
and Cost Evaluation Task Force. This panel recently reported to 
Congress that the space station is faced with crippling cost overruns.
  Congress almost got it right in 1993 when the space station survived 
by just one single vote. We recognized then that NASA could not afford 
the station. In the years that followed, this behemoth has squeezed the 
budgets of the so-called ``smaller, faster, cheaper'' missions. Not 
since the Hubble Space Telescope repair and the Mars Pathfinder 
missions has the American public been rewarded by the fantastic 
discoveries offered by our space program.
  Now the independent task force has told us that overall management of 
the whole program and its total costs has been inadequate. As a result 
of budget overruns and schedule delays, NASA must reorganize the entire 
space station program, redefine the scientific objectives and 
drastically cut spending to keep the current three-person crew 
financially feasible. The panel further reported that plans to complete 
the basic U.S. part of the station over the next 5 years with the $8.3 
billion allotted to the program are not credible.
  No one has a good estimate of how much the space station will cost. 
GAO estimated years ago that it would cost American taxpayers more than 
$100 billion to build and operate over its lifetime. Now it is clear 
that there will be no worthwhile scientific research to show for it. 
The station's eight original scientific research objectives are gone 
along with the crew return vehicle, which might have allowed an 
adequate number of crew members to conduct research.
  Regardless, the station is now limited to a crew of only three--the 
number of astronauts that can fit inside a Russian Soyuz re-entry 
vehicle. That is why Europe, Japan, Canada and other international 
partners will not be able to conduct research. Instead, they will spend 
their time simply preserving and keeping in orbit a behemoth that can't 
afford the manpower to yield any new meaningful science.
  I am also concerned that this bill comes up short on critically 
important housing programs that serve this country's most vulnerable 
citizens and families. Many accounts within the Department of Housing 
and Urban Development are simply zeroed out under this legislation. For 
example, the Public Housing Drug Elimination Grant program has been 
eliminated. Funding for empowerment zones is cut by 78 percent, public 
housing modernization by 5 percent, and community development block 
grants by 2 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, additional cuts to distressed public housing 
revitalization and fair housing and equal opportunity activities will 
not help alleviate the shortage of adequate housing in America's inner 
cities and rural areas. I cannot support efforts to cut off poor and 
rural families from finding decent housing in these areas.

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