Close Menu
    White House Withholds Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill
    Space

    White House Withholds Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill

    Share.
    View 17 Comments

    17 Comments

    1. MRtokeALOT420 on

      they will give the same funding to space x instead. Then space x will donate money to campaigns and super pacs. Rinse and repeat.

    2. ThePensiveE on

      Of course. Nobody in the administration personally profits off of it if they just give out Congressionally appropriated money!

    5. speedle62 on

      Last sentence in the article really should be the first sentence. Otherwise it’s just clickbait.

    7. yoweigh on

      >“This pause in commitments is intended to prevent negative work; once the signed apportionment is received from OMB-which could be as soon as Tuesday, February 17th,” the e-mail continued. “This temporary hold is expected to last for 10 business days, but may be extended.”

      This isn’t good, of course, but it’s not as bad as the headline would have you believe.

    8. Sophia8Inches on

      After reading the e-mail and the NASA funding bill a bit more, I’m not sure if this is exactly legal. The NASA funding bill explicitly prohibited OMB from impounding any of the NASA Science funds. So now they’re trying to skirt around this prohibition in the funding bill by using apportionment in a highly unusual way. They technically aren’t “withholding funding”, instead they are issuing the apportionment paperwork but adding a note that says: “These funds are available, but you cannot commit them to new contracts until we finish a 10-day ‘policy review’, and this policy review apparently can also be extended. I’m not sure for how long can it be extended, but if they can extend this review every 10 days for several months, they can effectively “starve” missions like the Chandra Observatory or the Earth science programs from much-needed cash.

      Technically might be legal, but in practice completely against the language of the funding bill which stated that NASA has to spend “no less than” the amount provided by the bill. I wonder what’s gonna happen next and what Jared Isaacman and Congress have to say about this. Best case scenario though is that this crisis ends on February 17 with policy review finished, so let’s hope for that.

    9. bacondavis on

      They’ve taken money from NASA and NIH research to fund NHS and ICE, even if the Democrats shut the government down, Vought and Miller ensured the BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL over funded DHS and ICE to prevent funding disruptions.

    10. waywardflaneur on

      “White House Steals Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill”

      There fixed it for you.

    13. wwarnout on

      Trump is a science denier. I don’t think most people understand how deadly this is.

      Science is humanity’s greatest achievement, without which we would still be living in caves – and dying in our 30s.

      Those who deny science are an existential threat to all of humankind.