[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 108 (Thursday, July 25, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5948-S5949]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             FUNDING LEVELS

  Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, what we have seen is a recognition that 
these are tough times and we need some belt-tightening. But to go back 
to this level of sequestration is not the right thing to do because 
that is taking a meat cleaver approach, across-the-board, on cutting 
Federal programs. It is just not a responsible way of belt-tightening. 
Fortunately, this motion to recommit, to in essence go to the level of 
appropriations for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development 
that was to take it to the level of the House, which is considerably 
lower than what has come out of our Appropriations Committee in the 
Senate--fortunately, this motion to recommit was defeated.
  Why do we want to cut funding, as the House bill does, to critical 
areas such as air traffic controllers?
  It is dangerous, shortsighted, and we have been to this rodeo before. 
As a matter of fact, doesn't anyone remember that earlier in the year 
we had to fix the sequestration cuts that went into effect in the 
current fiscal year because it was cutting out all kinds of air traffic 
controllers and furloughed a number of them and closed the contract 
towers for the small airports? We had to reverse that. The public rose 
and said: This is not the right nor intelligent thing to do when it 
comes to the public safety.
  In addition to compromising the safety of the traveling public, those 
air traffic cuts would have increased the flight delays by hours and 
hours and caused a lot of cancellations. Lo and behold, when the 
American traveling public saw that was exactly what was happening, they 
rose and they said: Enough. The body politic responded. Here was an 
attempt to repeat that. If we reduce the top line of funding for this 
next fiscal year on this bill, we are going to be right back in the 
same situation where we were last spring: scrambling to keep our 
aviation system functioning safely and again delaying the next 
generation of air traffic controllers which we are desperately trying 
to set up.
  This House of Representatives sequestration budget--outside of 
aviation--is going to mean more crumbling roads and bridges, more 
families unable to put a roof over their heads, and our infrastructure 
will continue to be falling into further disrepair. So it is our 
responsibility to keep our country safe and the economy moving. Thank 
goodness we rejected this attempt to go back to the Dark Ages, but we 
are going to have more and more of this.
  We have a bill that is coming up next Tuesday in a markup in the 
Commerce Committee of the NASA authorization bill. Here is a bill that 
has never been partisan. It is not only bipartisan, it has been 
nonpartisan. We have never

[[Page S5949]]

had a partisan vote on a NASA authorization bill. Three years ago on 
the NASA authorization bill that broke a lot of new ground, we passed 
it out of the committee and out of the whole Senate unanimously.
  I am very saddened to report to the Senate that next Tuesday we are 
going to have a markup of the NASA authorization bill. There is not a 
disagreement as to the balance we have in the bill between the big 
rocket called the Space Launch System, its capsule, its spacecraft, 
Orion, or what we balance against commercial rockets trying to get 
cargo and crew to the International Space Station. There is not a 
disagreement on that.
  There is not a disagreement on keeping up the programs on our weather 
satellites--all of the stuff we put up for NOAA so that, in fact, we 
can predict our weather, and in hurricane season that becomes 
especially important. There is not a disagreement about continuing the 
exploration program with the robotic spacecraft to Mars and to other 
planets as well as putting up a satellite, in part for the Department 
of Defense, to warn us against the solar nuclear explosions on the 
surface of the Sun so we can get ready to save our satellites by the 
time that nuclear radiation gets to Earth. There is no disagreement on 
that.
  There is no disagreement on the future of the new space telescope 
called the James Webb Space Telescope that is going to replace the 
existing one when it goes on the blink. It has uncovered all of these 
secrets of the universe as we peer back into time on the universe.
  There is no disagreement on the substance of this bill. The partisan 
vote that is going to occur on Tuesday in the Commerce Committee is 
going to be because of the funding level. The bill Senator Rockefeller 
and I have offered that will be voted on will be, unfortunately, a 
partisan vote because it takes the level of funding of the budget 
resolution which is $18.1 billion. The vote will be partisan because of 
those who want the sequester to apply, and as such they want $16.8 
billion instead of $18.1 billion or even lower, as the House of 
Representatives has done, $16.6 billion.
  I can tell everyone that little agency, NASA, can't do all of these 
things I just mentioned that there is no disagreement we need to do. 
Getting humans back into space, preparing for the next major 
exploration with humans in the decade of the 2030s, going to the planet 
Mars--there is no disagreement with that. But we can't do it if we 
don't provide the funds now to develop the techniques, the technology, 
the procedures, and build our way like building blocks to ultimately 
where we can send humans multiples of millions of miles away from the 
home planet and bring them back safely.
  Sadly, I am afraid we are going to have a partisan vote because of 
that disagreement on the level of funding. It will be the first time 
ever we are going to have that kind of vote recorded on that little 
agency called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. So, 
just like today, here we go.
  Down the road, this is going to have to be decided, and it probably 
will come very late in the year. It will probably come when we come to 
another crisis point of having to raise the debt ceiling. It will 
probably come to the point where we have all kinds of good and new 
ideas on tax reform that will be coming out--a major tax reform--of the 
Finance Committee. We are limping along on appropriations bills just to 
keep us funded and to keep the government functioning after October 1 
in the new fiscal year. At some point, all of this is coming to a head, 
including what level of funding is it going to be.
  I hope we will start using some common sense and act accordingly.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Florida.

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