F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving the right to object, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] is saying yes and no, and I guess I will accept it for getting on with it. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully disagree with the gentlewoman from Texas saying this amendment is necessary to equalize money that is spent between minority and nonminority students at universities that get NASA education funds. The figures are exactly the opposite and if we were to equalize the amount of money that was spent, we would be cutting the minority account even further than what is proposed in the bill. Let me give you those figures. For the nonminority students and faculty, approximately 700,000 to 750,000 faculty and students benefit by the education programs of NASA every year. In the bill's figures in fiscal 1998, that amounts to approximately $76.55 spent per faculty or student from the education and program account in the nonminority institutions. Using the bill's figures in the minority institutions in fiscal 1998, there will be 50,000 faculty and students benefited, and of those 50,000 students, approximately $934 will be spent per faculty and student in the minority research and education programs. So the minority research and education programs are getting 11 to 12 times the amount of money per student than the nonminority research and education programs, and the amendment of the gentlewoman from Texas wants to make that disparity still bigger. I think that is unfair. Second, the amendment of the gentlewoman from Texas does not increase the total authorization for NASA. So while she pluses up the education account for NASA, that means that the other accounts will end up having their programs and their people reduced as a result of what is effectively an earmark. That means less money for science, less money for Mission to Planet Earth, less money for human space flight, less money for the Johnson Space Center in Houston, less money for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, simply because of the direction that she is putting the capped amount of money in the authorization bill into this particular program. So for this reason and the fact that we already are spending 11 to 12 times as much per faculty and student in the minority programs and should not increase that still further, contrasted to the nonminority programs, I would hope that this amendment would be defeated.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. The answer is no, Mr. Chairman, because I think the principle of the amendment is bad. We should not be micromanaging the agency. If there is an emergency like a Government shutdown, I have every confidence in the NASA administrator to do the right thing.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is micromanagement in its worst way. The NASA administrator has got the power to declare all employees in his agency essential, should there be a Government shutdown. He has the discretion to make a determination on which employees are vital for the health and safety of continued operations of NASA. So to say that mission control walks off the job if there should be a Government shutdown while a space shuttle mission is up is ridiculous, because that is not going to happen. The NASA administrator has the power to make sure that those people who are responsible for the safe operation of the shuttle mission report to work and do their jobs as usual. That is what happened during the unfortunate Government shutdowns that we had in the last 2 years. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is also unfair because it singles out NASA employees. Why should all NASA employees be declared essential but not all employees of the FBI, not all employees of the Treasury Department, not all employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, or any other department? Mr. Chairman, I know that having a broader amendment would be ruled out of order as nongermane, but I think that it shows the terrible precedent this sets if we legislatively decree that employees of one department are all essential but not decree that employees of other departments are all essential. Having said that, Mr. Chairman, let me say that it is my hope that we never have another Government shutdown. There are Members that are working on legislation that provide for a continuation of appropriations if a budget deal is not reached by September 30. We have had a similar law on the books in the State of Wisconsin, where I served in the State legislature for 10 years before I was elected to Congress. When the budget was not passed on time, which was more often than when the budget was passed on time, the agencies simply continued at the existing level of appropriations, or at some other level that was determined by State law, and nobody was furloughed. Mr. Chairman, I hope that before September 30 we are able to get a similar law like that on the books. I can pledge my support to it. That is the right way to go about this problem. The amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Texas is the wrong way. I would urge its defeat.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. With that explanation, Mr. Chairman, let me say that I support the amendment and I do hope it is adopted.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the gentlewoman's amendment prohibits NASA from paying tuition for employees' courses at the International Space University for programs outside the United States, but allows for NASA to pay tuition and fees for programs within the United States. I ask the gentlewoman, is my impression correct?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment can be appropriately dubbed the dumb like a fox amendment, because if it is passed and the Russians are kicked out now, that will result in a huge unanticipated cost that will bust the $2.1 billion cap that we have had, and then the gentleman from Indiana will come back and say, I told you so, there is a cost overrun, and we ought to pass my amendment to kill the space station to begin with. So I do not think that we should pass this amendment, even though I have probably been the most severe critic of the Russian participation in this program in the entire Congress. The problem, Mr. Chairman, is not the Russian technicians or the Russian manufacturers, it is the Russian Government and not making the payments to their contractors and subcontractors to do the work on those elements of the space station that the Russians agreed to build. I certainly hope that Russia will clean up its act and live up to its international obligations, because this is the first test of whether the new Russia will do so; and so far, the Russians have flopped. They have broken promise after promise after promise made to me, made to the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis], who is the subcommittee chairman; made to the Vice President of the United States, made to the NASA administrator, and made to the President of the United States. The problem, as I see it, is the fact that when this problem started to fester, the Clinton administration trusted the Russians to live up to their promises; and after they broke one promise after the other, the Clinton administration was not willing to admit that it made a mistake. The provisions that we have in this bill are designed to make the Clinton administration reach timely decisions so that we do not have to spend an undue amount of extra money to replace what the Russians do not appear with, should that happen. There is a provision in this bill that specifically prohibits NASA from paying the Russians to construct replacements for what the Russians promise to pay for in the original agreement. There are reporting requirements monthly so that NASA has to say in public whether Russia is completing its agreement or not. There is a deadline of August 1 for the President of the United States to make a certification of whether we go ahead with Russia included in this project. To sum up, the decision to include the Russians and the details on the inclusion of the Russians were made not by the Congress but by the Clinton administration. If it does not work out the way they advertised, then they are the ones that ought to admit that they made a mistake. This bill forces them to make a decision on that question one way or the other. If the decision is to disengage the Russians, the President of the United States will have to tell us that and the President of the United States will then have to tell us how much it will cost to make up for what the Russians were supposed to have done, and the Clinton administration relied on them, and their reliance was in error.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida, [Mr. Stearns]. (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, and I do not intend to object, let me clarify that of the time allocated to the proponents of the amendment, does the gentleman from Indiana intend to yield 15 minutes of that time to Republican supporters of the amendment, and then I would yield 15 minutes of my time to Democratic opponents of the amendment?

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, the majority accepts this amendment, and I would like to point out that it does have an offset so there is no increase to the authorization of the bill. There is an offset from another section of the bill. I think that is the way we ought to be considering these amendments, and I would encourage the committee to adopt the amendment to the amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the remainder of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute be printed in the Record and open to amendment at any point.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I also yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon], the distinguished vice chair of the subcommittee.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman that serving on the Committee on Science from January 3, 1997, has been a tremendously maturing process for all of us.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support H.R. 1275, the Civilian Space Authorization Act, which the Committee on Science recommends to the House by a wide bipartisan margin. In fiscal year 1998, this bill provides a modest 1-percent increase for NASA over its fiscal 1997 appropriated level. For fiscal year 1999 we provide a 1\1/2\-percent increase over the 1997 level. As most of the Members will recognize, these increases do not keep pace with inflation, so NASA's real budget continues to fall. Nevertheless, H.R. 1275 provides NASA with the stability it requires to achieve our national space goals during this period of declining budgets. The bill fully funds NASA's programs and scientific research and includes modest increases in space science data analysis to correct NASA's failures to adequately fund its science investigations. The bill also contains funding to take our reusable launch vehicle programs to the next level, a generation beyond the X-33 program. X-33 remains our first priority, but this new investment in another X plane concept ensures that the Nation has options for the future of its space transportation capabilities. I would like to turn now to the bill's international space station provisions. As my colleagues are aware, the Clinton administration invited Russia to join the international space station in 1993. At the time Congress was skeptical that Russia would make a good partner based upon the instability associated with its transition from communism to democracy and capitalism. But the administration made a lot of promises, arguing that the Russians would never let their space program fall into disrepair, and that we would not be dependent upon the Russians for the success of the international space station. As most of us know, those promises have been broken. This does not mean that we should walk away from the space station. Its potential to radically improve our knowledge of human physiology, plant and animal biology, microgravity, and material science has been demonstrated time and time again on the space shuttle and in testimony before the Committee on Science. Congress has been right and proper in continuing its support for the international space station, and I hope it continues to do so today. We have been consistent and passed funding for the space station in the last Congress by 140 vote margins. Our mistake, which we were obligated to make, was to place any faith in the administration's promises. H.R. 1275 fixes that problem. In committee, the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] and I offered an amendment that imposes a decision process on the administration relative to the Russian problem and the space station. That amendment was adopted by a unanimous division vote of 25 to nothing. Briefly, we prohibit paying Russia for its commitments to the international space station. They have to pay for that themselves. United States taxpayers' money will not be used to pay for what the Russians promised to build. Second, we put an end to the administration's practice of dissembling, denying, and ducking problems by forcing NASA to develop a contingency plan and time line for deciding whether or not to remove each Russian piece of hardware in the critical path. Third, we require NASA to certify each month that the Russians are, or are not, living up to their obligations, so the administration cannot spring surprises on us and pretend it did not know what was going on. Fourth, we require the President to certify by August 1 that he will or will not baseline the Russian elements in the Space Station's design. Finally, long-term stays by our astronauts on the Russian Mir space station require an independent review of the Mir to determine whether it meets or exceeds U.S. safety standards. We cannot risk our astronauts on Mir just to save Russia's dignity or to allow the administration to remain in denial. I would point out that there is currently a leak of antifreeze on Mir that has caused a partial evacuation of one of the modules of Mir. It does not place our astronauts in a life-threatening situation at the present time, but this is the latest in a long line of safety problems, because the Mir space station has outlived its useful and functional life, and is continuing to be used by the Russians. The bill is a good package of policy initiatives that will put the space station back on the right track when it comes to dealing with Russia. We are not imposing a solution on the administration, at least not yet. We are not imposing a solution because the committee still hopes to work with the White House to come up with a national solution to this problem. But we are imposing a decision-making process with deadlines that will force the administration to resolve this problem, and to prevent a hemorrhage of more U.S. taxpayer funds from being unnecessarily used because delaying the problem's resolution will simply increase costs. This reason alone is enough to warrant continuing bipartisan support for H.R. 1275. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher], chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment that has been offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn]. I think there are two reasons why we should do this. First, the NSF contributes $50,000 for this program. It is a controversial program, it is a program that has been set up by the United Nations, and as the gentleman from Oklahoma has stated, it has never been voted on by the Congress. The question is whether or not we can spend $50,000 on better research than this. I think we can. There is the secretariat in the State Department that is supposed to coordinate all of this money. It seems to me that there are a lot of people on the payroll, there is an awful lot of traveling around. That is not research in my mind. What is research is the type of stuff that the NSF can do inhouse with peer review grants to our universities, to our high schools, to our research institutions in the United States of America. So it is a question of whether we want to spend the money on Man and the Biosphere or whether we want to spend the money on the other very worthwhile NSF research projects. I vote for spending the money on the other worthwhile NSF research projects. Second, the gentleman from Oklahoma raises a very good point. The committee did offer, or did adopt, an amendment that he offered to the NASA bill that prohibits NASA funds from being contributed into this pot. The same arguments that I gave against using NSF funds for this pot are valid for NASA funds. I think it was probably an oversight that he was not able to offer the similar amendment to the NSF bill. This simply corrects the oversight, makes the Congress consistent in both NSF and NASA, and I would urge support of the gentleman from Oklahoma's amendment.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I also have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas [Mr. Sessions].