Following NASA’s recently proposed rule that requires federal contractors to reveal their greenhouse gas emissions, two Republican senators have accused the space agency of overstepping its authority and straying from its core space exploration mission.
Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas, a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Sen. Eric Schmitt from Missouri, one other senior member of the committee’s space wing, voiced concerns that NASA is advancing the “woke” agenda of the Biden administration and will threaten the rare bipartisan support that NASA receives in Congress.
“I do worry sometimes that we could also be losing deal with what makes America the preeminent spacefaring nation,” Sen. Cruz told NASA Administrator Bill Nelson during a budget hearing on Tuesday (May 16), in line with Space News’ Jeff Foust (opens in latest tab). “Quite than helping us win the space race, the proposed rule would be sure that NASA could do less exploration and fewer science for more taxpayer dollars.”
“You and I on this committee have a distinct approach to what is occurring to the Earth’s climate,” Nelson said. “It so happens that NASA is in the course of this.”
The regulation being slammed by Republicans was proposed (opens in latest tab) jointly by NASA, the General Services Administration and the Department of Defense on Nov. 14, 2022. The rule, which requires federal contractors to reveal their greenhouse gas emissions and submit science-backed targets to cut back them, would increase costs for federal agencies and contractors by $4 billion, over a dozen Republicans argued in a letter (opens in latest tab) sent to the space agency in early March.
Along with disclosing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the proposed rule also requires contractors to estimate and reveal climate-related financial risk, measures which are “ever-changing” and “unattainable” for a whole industry to follow, Republicans said in the identical letter. The high upfront and annual costs to stick to the proposed rule would prompt firms with limited resources to quit working with government contracts, they wrote.
NASA would find yourself bearing a big chunk of the $4 billion costs, which might in turn “remove dollars that otherwise can be available to go to the moon and Mars… Just how much are y’all driving up costs due to the political mandate from the White House?” Sen. Cruz told Nelson on Tuesday, in line with SpacePolicyOnline.com’s Marcia Smith (opens in latest tab).
Nelson defended the specifics of the proposed rule, saying he could waive the requirement for small businesses and emphasized that NASA will proceed to operate as “not only bipartisan but non-partisan.”
Cruz and Schmitt also raised concerns about NASA’s budget request for fiscal 12 months 2024, which incorporates $22 million for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives via its Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. The senators said such efforts could cause NASA to lose focus from the purported space race between america and China, which has announced its own planned crewed landing mission to the moon around 2030.
The requested funds for NASA’s diversity initiatives have “little to do with winning what you’ve gotten called an area race between the free world and China,” Sen. Cruz told Nelson on Tuesday.
“America cannot afford to take its eye off the ball with the rising threat of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party]. We have to be laser-like focused on our approach, and I can assure you that China has little interest in out-DEI-ing us, and they are not intimidated in any respect by this divisive radical policy that is found its way into this budget,” Cruz said.
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