NASA's climate funding in jeopardy with potential cuts
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A draft White House budget plan floating around would steeply cut NASA's Earth Sciences division that's the centerpiece of the agency's climate work.
Why it matters: "Such NASA cuts would require ending the operations of a huge host of earth science satellites," Paul Voosen writes in Science.
- "They could also result in the closure of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which has thousands of employees and is one of the agency's premier centers for earth science research," he adds.
Driving the news: The Washington Post reported that the budget plan, sent to NASA by the Office of Management and Budget, would give NASA's Science Mission Directorate $3.9 billion, down from its current budget of about $7.3 billion.
- "This budget would halt the development of nearly every future science project at NASA," the Planetary Society said in a statement.
- The group said the proposed cuts amount to "wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer funds already spent on these projects, abandoning international and commercial partners, and surrendering U.S. leadership in space science to other nations."
- The administration also is considering deep cuts to NOAA while seeking to end much of its climate change work, according to an internal document seen by Axios.
Yes, but: Jared Isaacman, President Trump's pick to lead NASA, told senators last week it would be feasible to have "multiple flagship scientific missions at once."
- He also said one of his primary objectives would be to make NASA "a force multiplier for science."
The other side: Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said in a statement she will "do everything I can to stand in the way of this idiotic plan."
- "The White House seems to think that our science capabilities operate in vacuums from one another," she said. "That is not the case."
