Dana Rohrabacher

Mr. ROHRABACHER

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman was responsive to the debates that we had, and I applaud him for this. This is a learning process around here. But then again, the money, by plussing it up in the way the gentleman now is suggesting, it does again come from another source. That source is money that we had hopefully to protect social security.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, is the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) now amending his amendment or proposing a new amendment that suggests that the $11 million come from the Advanced Space Transportation Technology section?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield, is that the proposal of the gentleman?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, let me suggest this, if the gentleman would continue to yield: I had extensive meetings on this budget with Mr. Goldin, who, of course, is the head of NASA. And I know that we have a big budget and I know $10 million or $11 million seems like it is a small portion, but believe it or not, the people in government who have to deal with this budget actually have ideas of how this money should be spent and have ideas and know that if it is not spent in another way it will come out of these other priorities. Mr. Goldin has emphasized to me, as the chairman of the subcommittee, that the Advanced Space Technology portion is third highest priority. And frankly, this is something that we should have been discussing and going through for the last two or three weeks rather than here on the floor of trying to find an area. So I would imagine Dan Goldin and the administration would oppose it coming out of that themselves. It is something that, and I agree with the gentleman, I mean, I think that he has hit an area that needs research. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, NASA has already decided to increase, due to probably some of the arguments he has provided, by $25 million.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in respectful but still opposition to at least two of the amendments offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Roemer). Perhaps we will talk about the third, but let me just say that now is not the time for us to undermine the space station program. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) has made his position very clear. He believes the space station is wasteful, and he believes that it takes away from other priorities. He has made his arguments, and some of his arguments have certainly a flavor of legitimacy to them, not to say that we can agree with him at this time. Perhaps 10 years ago when we were facing this same situation, perhaps when I first came to Congress, would have been a better idea just to go along with Mr. Roemer at that time, but we have gone forward now, and we have reached a point that it would be a tremendously destructive factor to America's space program to try to end the space station project at this time. If we end the space station project, we follow the lead of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), it will be a death knell to space cooperation throughout the world. We have made agreements with our allies. We also made an agreement and a covenant with the American people. We spent so many billions of their dollars already on this project, it is incumbent now upon us here at the last moments, in the last 2 years of this project, to get the project done. And I agree with Mr. Goldin. Mr. Goldin, I think, has been a breath of fresh air to the space program, that his number one priority is to get this project done, get on with it, so then we can go on to other things. If we instead decide to cancel this project to go on to other things, as the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) would like us to do, it will lead to just the opposite. We will not be cancelling to go into other things, we will be undermining public confidence and any other major space programs and commitments in the future. So, while I sympathize with his responsible efforts to prioritize and to talk about, as my colleagues know, drawbacks in this budget, I simply cannot support, and I do not think it is responsible for us now to pull back at this last moment. Now let me just say a few words about space station and what it will be and why it is worth moving forward at this time. The space station, once complete, will be one of the great and historic engineering feats of all times. We are demonstrating that our engineers, and with a combined and cooperative effort with other countries of the world, can build a great edifice in space, a structure that can be used for, yes, scientific research, but also a structure that can be expanded and used for other things in the future that we perhaps cannot foresee now. Just the engineering experience that we get from building space station and the experience we have working with this cooperative relationship with others will educate us and permit us to accomplish other great things in space, perhaps a moon base, perhaps something that I envisioned, a space grid, an electric grid in space that will help us once our oil resources dwindle to provide clean electricity from space to be beamed down from solar collectors onto the Earth. These are great dreams, but these are dreams that have to start with engineering capabilities that the space station now will enable us to do because it will teach us those techniques and enhance those capabilities. So, I would respectfully request my colleagues to reject Mr. Roemer's amendments, at least two of them dealing with the space station, and to support the space station, not to quit and call it off right here at the last moment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer). I just would advise those people reading the official Congressional Record of this procedure to note that I have used the words, I rise in support of the amendment of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), which is just another miracle, as has happened here today. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) has been very persistent over the years, but on this particular amendment we should not ignore the fact that we may disagree with him on some things, but that he in this amendment is offering us a position that the Committee on Science and certainly the Subcommittee on Space has approved of for a long time. This message by the Roemer amendment is not aimed at the Russians. We are not sending the Russians a message here. The Russians were sent that message by us a long time ago. This is a message to our own State Department and this administration to start paying attention to what this Congress is doing and what we are saying about how this project and other projects should be approached. This administration has ignored us time and time again on the issue of how to deal with the Russians in connection with the Space Station program. The Committee on Science, although not having specific hearings on this issue, has addressed this issue on numerous occasions, and we have expressed our strong desire that the Russians, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) stated, be treated, not as partners, but instead as subcontractors. The concept of the Russians as partners in Space Station, which made sense in the beginning, before we knew what chaos that the Russians were going to have to go through in the aftermath of the Cold War, makes no sense now that we know the limitations, the severe economic limitations of the current Russian government. The Russians cannot afford to be partners in the Space Station program. I remember saying that probably 3 or 4 years ago. Yet, the administration proceeded without any regard to what Congress was saying and what we were trying to insist upon and continued with this idea with the Russians as partners. If we would have proceeded instead with Russians as subcontractors, we could, as the Roemer amendment is suggesting now, simply pay those subcontractors for what they have produced and get on with the program. So, that is number one. This mistake was made, and it has turned out to be a costly mistake by the administration but it is based on the idea, on foreign policy considerations, not on NASA and Space Station considerations. Secondly, let me suggest this. We have said over and over again that the Russians should not be in the critical path. I can remember many statements by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) admonishing the administration, whatever you do, do not put us in the path where the Russians can prevent the success of the Space Station. It is time we get them out of the critical path. It is time we make sure that we are defining this in a very responsible way. But NASA has ignored this committee. Again, it is not NASA that is ignoring the committee, it goes straight up to the very top of the administration, which has been making irresponsible decisions in terms of our relationship with Russia. This is probably paramount in that decision- making process, which is a flawed decision-making process. With that said, let me admit that this Congressman in the very beginning supported the idea of having a cooperative relationship with Russia. I certainly do not fault the administration with, number one, good intentions and a defensible strategy in the beginning. But in order to protect the taxpayers when a strategy has gone wrong and when it seems that there are intervening circumstances that prevent that strategy from being successful, the administration, like everybody else, especially in the private sector but also people in government, have to admit the strategy can no longer succeed, and change the strategy. Unfortunately, those of us again who supported the idea of cooperation in the beginning have found that, while we recognize the strategy had to change or it was going to cost the taxpayer tens of billions of dollars, the administration refused to change. We refused to change because of perhaps some face-saving concept, if we are going to save face for our Russian friends, and certainly the Russian government needs that type of moral support, but we should not be trying to give the Russian government moral support at the cost of tens of billions of dollars. That is what has happened here. So while I believe the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) probably is motivated on his other two amendments to just try to kill the Space Station, I think that his amendment at this point is justified. I support it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to rise to suggest that the level of debate was just brought down, and I resent it. I just want to put this on the record. We need not to discuss these issues and every time we have a disagreement, relate political motives to each other. I for one am a little bit disgusted that every time I have a disagreement, not every time but often enough on this floor, that we end up saying, if we disagree with somebody over there, all of a sudden we are being political because we are opposing something the administration wants to do. I would inform my colleague that this amendment was presented by a Democrat. This is a Democrat amendment. This is by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), who has strong support, I imagine strong close ties to the Vice President. In fact, before the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) brought up the issue, I do not recall the Vice President's name being brought into this debate. In fact, I remember specifically stating that I personally supported this tactic and this strategy of working with the Russians in the beginning, but that the administration had not then shifted with the times and adjusted its strategy according to the current situation in Russia. So I would suggest to my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman), that instead of trying to belittle other people or call into question our motives that he quit saying that we are being political and stick to the issues. And I just personally resent the fact there were implications in his words that we were over here trying to make political hay out of this. I was interested in this Russian issue long before this administration became this administration.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Today I hope that as we are discussing the Space Station and we get into this last area of debate, that we take note that there is one person who is usually with us, who has been with us over the years and been an integral part of this debate, who is not with us today, whom we miss and we hope he is watching over C-SPAN. If he is not, we hope he is reading the Congressional Record, but we would all like to send our very best wishes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Brown), the former chairman. The gentleman from California has been a great boon to all of us in the Committee on Science. He has provided us an institutional memory over his many long years of service. During those many years, the gentleman from California has been a strong supporter of the International Space Station. In debates like this, he quite often has gotten up and reminded us of the long-term perspective and where we have been and where we are going, and has certainly done a great service to his country in that he has provided us the type of wisdom that is necessary for us to not only start projects like this but to complete projects like this. We hope that the gentleman from California is watching after he has gone through, I understand, a heart operation. All of us send our very, very warm regards to him. I think that as we vote now on the Space Station, on these amendments, and I hope the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) will not take this badly, but I hope that we keep the gentleman from California in mind because he has been such a strong supporter.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, the gentleman from California was the head of the committee for many years as I was a member of the minority at that time. If there is anything that has inspired me to try my very best not to be partisan, but to try to reach out and find areas of compromise and try to be nice and kind and fair to Members who are now no longer in the majority, it is the way he treated us during that entire time. There was no one who treated people more fairly and honestly in any committee than the gentleman from California did. We remember that now. It gives us a standard by which to judge our own behavior, a man who kept a very good spirit, even when there were spirited debates. We had honest disagreements under his leadership. Certainly we have a lot of honest disagreements because we come from minor political differences. By the way, our differences, even in the most adversarial parts of the discussion of any issue in this Congress, our differences are so minuscule compared to those things that separate other people in other countries who are killing themselves and such. Here we have certain programs like the space program that binds us together as Democrats and Republicans and helps ensure that we all understand that there is a big picture, that this is not the administration's space program or a Republican or a Democrat space program, this is America's space program, and that we have honestly tried, and I know that there has been some friction here, to ensure that all sides feel that they are part of the decision-making process even when there is a disagreement. Let us keep that in mind, especially, and keep the gentleman from California in mind, because when he was chairman we certainly operated in that spirit. As we go to this vote on the Space Station, I would hope that we do so, and there are some votes, I am siding with the gentleman from Indiana on one and opposing him on several, that we do so in this bipartisan spirit. I apologize if I got a little testy earlier when I thought the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) was suggesting that we had other motives.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. I am in support of the bill and the piece of legislation and opposed to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is in direct contradiction to the President's and Administrator Goldin's priorities for the space program for NASA. I understand the concern of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman) about the continuing reductions over time that we have seen in NASA's aeronautics budget. But cutting the Space Station to fund aeronautics is not the appropriate answer. However, at this point, let me point out that the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), again, the truth of his arguments is that we have to prioritize. If we are going to be spending huge chunks of money on the Space Station, that is exactly right. It is a very painful process. This is what part of that painful process is. Once again we are faced with something that comes from our decision, the decision of the whole body, to move forward with the Space Station. Administrator Goldin in this environment says his top three priorities are, number one, safety; number two, finishing the Space Station and getting it over with; and advanced space transportation technology. Everything else comes after that as far as the administration and Mr. Goldin and his priorities go. That means that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman) is proposing cutting the administrator's number two priority, which will in fact increase total Space Station costs because it will cause delays just to fund the station at a different level of priority. So let us not think that this is just an easy answer that takes somebody through Space Station. When we are here in the very last few moments of getting the Space Station up, any delay in this system will be very expensive, and there will be delays if we start cutting precipitously like this. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman) may or may not know that this bill does not cut research at NASA's Aeronautics Center one bit. In fact, this bill directs NASA to bring the resources and talents of the excellent scientists and engineers at the Aeronautic Center to bear on a higher priority. It is a priority, as I just mentioned, of Mr. Goldin's; it is one of his top three priorities. It is a much more difficult challenge than just trying to improve aeronautics, and that is to improve and to meet the challenge of advanced space transportation technology. Simply keeping the aeronautics centers working on aeronautics only is a very bad strategy. Now, yes, we realize that that is valuable work. But there are many challenges that we face and contributions that they could make outside the area of aeronautics. And limiting these centers to aeronautics, basically it is a very bad strategy and it is based on a going-out-of-business strategy. I, therefore, respectfully oppose the well-intentioned but I say counterproductive amendment of the gentleman. Because in the end, by delaying the Space Station and by taking money precipitously from it, it will cause disruptions in the Space Station program and the plan that we are moving forward on and we will not be getting done with the project and it will end up costing us more money and putting even more pressure on aeronautics and other aspects of NASA's budget. So while I understand the pressures we are under, I can sympathize with the idea that certain areas are not being funded like we would like to see them be if we had unlimited funding, but just cutting the Space Station precipitously is not the answer. Perhaps the answer should be, as I say, looking at the aeronautic centers and trying to broaden their area of research rather than keeping them just on aeronautics. So I reluctantly and respectfully oppose this amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, we need to see the language of this amendment. The gentleman just stated a couple of things that we did not know were in his amendment. Could we have a copy of this amendment, please?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Reclaiming my time, the purpose of this segment of the bill and the purpose of the changes that we have made was aimed not at prohibiting funds from being used for this ultra-efficient jet engine. That, in fact, is not the purpose at all and that is why the gentleman's suggestion is accepted. However, with the gentleman's amendment being accepted, this in no way suggests this program is becoming a focus program or that we are mandating that the money be spent. What the purpose of this whole enterprise was all about was to try to give discretion to the people over at NASA to attract not just government money, but to attract private sector money into this project. This is not the first time that this method has been used. Let me mention that we had a project, the EELV project, and, I might add, a lot of it would be built in my district, and I opposed it for the very reason that there was not any incentive to get the private sector involved and to get some extra money from the private companies involved in the development of this new rocket system. That project was changed and we managed to save the taxpayers $500 million and to get a better rocket as a result, because we brought the private sector in. The purpose of our changes here were to try to save the taxpayers some money by getting the private sector to invest into a project from which those companies would benefit. To the point that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) eliminates some language that might suggest that there is some sort of prohibition on spending funds for this engine, we accept that language, but it in no way suggests that this will be a focus program and that NASA must spend the money on the program.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, is that last part in the amendment of the gentleman or is that what the gentleman is explaining to us?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. That is it.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is in the report language.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Does the gentleman realize that this is being done in an effort to save the taxpayers money, to put more so that we can attract more money into the project by an investment from the private sector rather than having the focus program?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, we need to see a copy of the amendment.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, my amendment makes five minor changes to the language of H.R. 1654, most of which are clarifications rather than substantive changes. One substantive change is that I specify that the bill's increase of $30 million for Future-X in Fiscal Year 2000 should go toward fast Pathfinder class operability demonstrations. My purpose here is to tell NASA that they should not only fund Future-X concepts which demonstrate advanced component technology but which are innovative in using existing technology to prove out the all important issue of flexibility, reliability and low cost operations. So we are talking about money that would go for full-scale prototypes and operational systems and an overall system rather than just on a small segment of that development. My amendment then makes four different clarifying changes to H.R. 1654, the first three of which I will briefly summarize. It makes clear that the additional funding the bill provides for life and microgravity research would be available to fund research experiments to go on to the International Space Station. It adds the word ``encourage'' to the definition of space commercialization to make it clear that we expect government to take affirmative steps to encourage the private sector to commercially develop space. Third, we clarify the language describing an educational initiative on the centennial flight that is 1903, which we have heard about already this morning, so that the provisions address concerns raised by another committee of the House. Finally, my amendment clarifies H.R. 1645's limitation on the Ultra Efficient Engine Technology program, and I would like to spend the remainder of this statement on that item, which I included in this address specifically to deal with the concerns of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), who has put out a tremendous effort dealing with this specific issue. First and foremost, let me say there is no prohibition, and I heard earlier a statement on the floor suggesting that there is a prohibition in this bill on the use of funds for the ultra efficient technology engine. That analysis does Mr. Larson a great disservice, and I would hope that the Members on the other side of the aisle realize that when they are making that argument, it is going into the Record, that is not an accurate portrayal of what we are doing at all. In Fiscal Year 2000 NASA proposed the creation of a new 5-year focused program out of the remnants of two other focused astronautic programs in which NASA had abruptly canceled. The committee is concerned that frequently NASA will defend focused aeronautics program to the death even as they grow in cost and scope and then suddenly cancel them when the priorities of the agency changes. My goal with this amendment is to make it clear that NASA has the discretion whether or not to spend these resources and these funds on this project and that it is encouraged to pursue this engine in question and that the requested funding of $50 million per year will be spent within the aeronautics research and technology base. What we are then doing is providing NASA with the discretion, but in no way are we prohibiting NASA from moving forward with this engine project. The resulting language only prohibits a focused program. The bill and report language are not prejudicial in any way regarding using these funds to build or demonstrate this model engine. In short, we have not eliminated, as my colleagues know, we have not eliminated this program. What we have eliminated is the mandate that NASA spend its funds on this project, but in no way do we prohibit these funds from being spent in developing this engine or showing or building a prototype of this ultra efficient jet engine. I would hope that the NASA Administrator uses this discretion, which is the purpose of why we put this change in, and uses fully the funds requested for these next 3 years to obtain industry cost sharing. We are trying to encourage industry to get in by giving NASA some discretion here, because this will make this whole project a much better deal for the taxpayers, and in the end it will be better for the engine project to make sure the private sector is putting some money in. So finally I would like to thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson) because had he not put so much time and energy in, we would not be just making sure that we have clarified this position, and it would not be as good as it is today. But please do not, and there should be no interpretation of this, that this is some type of eliminating these funds. We are actually giving more discretion to NASA, trying to attract public sector investment. Mr. Chairman, I believe that none of the changes are controversial, and I believe that all of them improve the base of the bill, and I respectfully request the adoption of this manager's amendment.