NASA Operating Plan for FY 2013 to Target Planetary Overall, Cuts Research and Completed Missions

PEN Website: http://planetarynews.org
Editor: Mark V. Sykes
Co-Editors: Melissa Lane, Susan Benecchi
Email: pen_editor at psi.edu

SPECIAL REPORT AND ANALYSIS: NASA OPERATING PLAN FOR FY2013 TO TARGET PLANETARY OVERALL, CUTS RESEARCH AND COMPETED MISSIONS

CALL TO ACTION: CONGRESSIONAL HELP IS NEEDED, AND CALL NASA TO TASK

Mark V. Sykes
Planetary Science Institute

In his FY13 budget request, President Obama proposed the NASA Planetary budget be cut by more than 20% from its FY12 level (From $1.5B to less than $1.2B). Under the initial Continuing Resolutions covering the first half of the fiscal year, the Administration chose to operate NASA Planetary at this reduced level. Congress restored more than $222M of the President’s cut in its FY13 appropriation passed on March 21 and signed into law by the President. Congress’s action is now being reversed by NASA and others in the Administration through the preferential application of rescission and sequestration cuts of more than 15% to the NASA Planetary Science budget.

When Congress allocated additional funds, it also specified how they were to be spent in support of Planetary Science Research, Discovery, New Frontiers, Mars Exploration (including MAVEN, MSL, and other Mars activities including a future mission), and Outer Planets (including studies in support of a future Europa mission). Under section 505 of the law, no project can be eliminated or changed by more than 10%, unless House and Senate Committees on Appropriations are notified 15 days in advance. That means that if NASA decides the political consequences are minimal, it can pretty much do what it wants as long as notice is given – and that is what is happening.

After removing essentially all of funds added by Congress to Planetary Science, NASA and and others in the Administration have further chosen to reallocate significant funds from present planetary research and Discovery budgets to pay for new studies in support of a future Europa mission. The next Discovery call will certainly be delayed. The impact to research programs will be severe – further reduced selection rates can be anticipated. Might existing awards be retroactively reduced? Damage is made worse by the fact that these cuts are being implemented in the final months of the fiscal year.

Congress does not compel this action. This is a policy choice of NASA and others in the Obama Administration.

The Operating Plan has yet to be submitted to Congressional Committees on Appropriations. It was due on May 10th. I have obtained detailed information on its content from several source documents that collectively reveal a fairly stable state of development with very small tweaks in recent weeks.

A summary of the Operating Plan and its effects are given in the table below. Each row corresponds to a budget line given in the FY13 budget bill passed by Congress on March 21. Lunar Quest and Technology were not specifically called out (hence the brackets).

FY13P = President’s proposed budget for fiscal 2013 (the breakdown of Outer Planets in the President’s FY13 budget proposal is inferred from information in the proposed Operating Plan).
This is the budget under which NASA Planetary Science has been operating since October 1, 2012.

OP = Operating Plan for fiscal 2013, with rescission and sequestration applied, to be submitted to Congress

Delta = OP – FY13P

Cong = Appropriated budget signed into law (without rescission and sequestration)

%Cong = Percentage change in appropriated budget proposed by NASA Operating Plan including rescission and sequestration

Note: All numbers are in $millions. At this point, I expect only small adjustments prior to the submission of the Operating Plan to Congress. My apology for any scrivener’s errors.

Note: DELTA IS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT, because it indicates the amount of funding being removed or added to the current budget by the operating plan. A negative indicates funding that must be removed from a program over the next four months (the end of the current fiscal year).

Note: I understand that the apparent MAVEN reduction is not a cut. It reflects the timing of expenses. These funds continue to be book-kept within Mars exploration with little change to the overall current budget level – though Congress directed a major increase, which has been removed.

CONGRESS SHOULD GIVE NASA SPECIFIC DIRECTION FOR A REVISED OPERATING PLAN

(1) Rescission and sequestration should not be preferentially applied to NASA Planetary Science and should not exceed 8%.

(2) Cuts should not result in any Planetary budget line being reduced below the President’s FY13 budget request, under which the Planetary Science Division has been operating since the beginning of the fiscal year.

(3) Priority should be given to stabilizing research and data analysis programs and improving their selection rates, as well as advancing the date of the next Discovery call.

CONTINUING EVERY LINE AT OR ABOVE THEIR CURRENT FUNDING LEVEL WOULD BE CONSISTENT WITH THE LAW.

This would avoid further damage to existing programs (beyond that already suffered in the first half of the fiscal year) while allowing augmented activities to realize benefit from funds remaining above the President’s budget request after rescission and sequestration is applied to the higher budget that was passed by Congress and signed into law.

The planetary community did a great job convincing Congress of the need to take the action it did. There was large support from both Senate and House, Republicans and Democrats. We need once more to engage our elected representatives to preserve what has been a crown jewel of American initiative and achievement – the US solar system exploration program.

Contact the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies and tell them that a 15% reduction of the FY13 NASA Planetary budget and the damaging reallocation of resources across that budget after reductions is not acceptable. Contact your Representative and Senators and ask them to add their voice to yours in these requests.

The Subcommittee chairs are:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (Chair)
202-224-5202 (Subcommittee #)
202-224-8858 (Mikulski FAX)
senator@mikulski.senate.gov

Sen. Richard Shelby (Ranking Member)
202-224-5202 (Subcommittee #)
202-224-3416 (Shelby FAX)
senator@shelby.senate.gov

Rep. Frank Wolf (Chair)
202-225-3351 (Subcommittee #)
202-225-1808 (Subcommittee FAX)
frank@wolfforcongress.com

Rep. Chaka Fattah (Ranking Member)
202-225-3351 (Subcommittee #)
202-225-1808 (Subcommittee FAX)
chaka.fattah@mail.house.gov

Other members of the Senate subcommittee may be found at: http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/sc-commerce.cfm

Other members of the House subcommittee may be found at: http://appropriations.house.gov/about/members /commercejusticescience.htm

It has been suggested to me by Congressional staff that comments should also be directed to NASA.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden charles.bolden@nasa.gov 202-358-1010

Associate Administrator for Space Science John Grunsfeld john.m.grunsfeld@nasa.gov 202-258-3889

This operating plan has yet to be submitted to Congress. In anticipation that whatever is sent will see the bright light of day, I hope that NASA and the rest of the Administration will reconsider their current plans and make rational modifications consistent with the above.

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