The Huntsville Times November 09, 2006
Democratic Congress unlikely to cut defense, space, experts say
NASA, Pentagon likely to face more questions, though
By Shelby G. Spires
Don't expect mass layoffs in key Huntsville defense and space programs when Democrats take control of the U.S. House and possibly the Senate, defense experts said Wednesday.
Missile defense and other Pentagon programs, many based in Huntsville, aren't favorites of many Democrats. But the party is more conservative today than it has been in years, experts said. But a couple said Pentagon and NASA programs may face more questions and demands.
"This party has been in the minority for virtually 12 years. They learned something during that time," said Mark McDaniel, a Huntsville attorney who advises members of Congress on NASA and science issues. "I don't believe this is a 'liberal' or 'ultra liberal' Democratic party taking over Congress.
"People weren't voting for extremes on Tuesday, and for an incoming Congress to run through and start slashing defense budgets and NASA budgets without thinking would be a mistake that could blow up" in the 2008 elections.
McDaniel said Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, would be in a better position to keep Huntsville programs healthy "because of his seniority that he has built up over the years to represent Marshall. He's also very influential in the Blue Dog Coalition."
Cramer was first elected in 1990, and the Blue Dogs were formed in 1994 - Cramer was a founding member - as a conservative Democratic caucus to counter the party's liberals.
After President Clinton took office in 1993, post-Cold War changes in defense policy and Democratic cuts in defense spending led to widespread cancellation of Pentagon programs and layoffs; many jobs were lost in Huntsville when space and missile defense programs were slashed or eliminated.
A Democratic majority should be different in 2007, military and space experts said.
"I don't see anybody out there on the Democrats side with a strongly held view on chopping up missile defense or Defense Department budgets," said John Pike, a veteran defense expert and director of GlobalSecurity.org. "I don't think the changeover will have a lot of effect on missile defense and space programs at all.
"There won't be a lot of massive job losses because defense contractors back both" parties.
More than 80 percent of the Pentagon's ground-based missile defense work is based in Huntsville, and the majority of the Missile Defense Agency is scheduled to move to Redstone Arsenal over the next five years.
Pike said Democrats will be more likely to "require additional testing for those ground-based interceptors the Pentagon has been sticking in the ground in Alaska. That's the one issue related to missile defense over the past five years under discussion."
Victoria Samson, a research analyst with the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C., said Democrats probably would be less likely to automatically pass Defense Department and NASA budgets without some debate and stipulations such as the advanced testing of missile defense systems.
"In the past there has been an almost automatic funding of missile defense programs," Samson said Wednesday. "It's not going to be that way with future budgets."
Samson said long-term, multiyear Pentagon programs, such as the Huntsville-based Kinetic Energy Interceptor missile defense system, "saw some opposition even in the Republican-held Congress," she said. "Now, Democrats are much more likely to question these type of unproven development programs and open up more legislation that would at least require more testing."
If the Democrats have control of both the House and Senate, said Keith Cowing, a NASA expert who runs NASAWatch.com, "then you can expect a lot of hearings and much, much more oversight of NASA programs, and the government in general."
"That also means things won't just be shunted down to Marshall Space Flight Center because the Alabama delegation wants it," he said.
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, have both been influential in winning money and support for NASA and Pentagon programs over the past 10 to 12 years.
Several programs have been moved to Marshall from other NASA centers over the past few years, notably the management of a lunar probe mission.
Cowing said it would be difficult to move those programs back "and I don't expect that Marshall will lose anything, but I don't think it will be easy to gain a lot of new work either."
NASA International Space Station science programs, many that have been based at Marshall Space Flight Center and cut back or become dormant, could see new life because of science support in the U.S. House, said Cowing.
"The programs would be easy to turn back on, but you can't grow a research community overnight. The research was shut down more than two years ago. This research community has been allowed to evaporate, and that will be difficult to reinstate," he said.
Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, is the favorite to take over as chairman in January.
McDaniel, a Gordon adviser, said that would bode well for science work at Marshall "because that's where NASA programs are started in the funding process, and (Gordon) has been very supportive of Marshall science programs, and NASA as a whole, in the past."
The experts agreed it is hardly likely the new Congress will shut down NASA efforts to return to the moon, "but they probably will start asking tough questions," Cowing said.
"They've been asking questions for months now. Democrats have questions that have yet to be answered," he said. "There are questions about the future of science programs. They have questions about the total costs of the Vision for Space Exploration, but nobody has clamored to shut these programs down.
"They want realistic answers, and I think NASA doesn't have some of these answers" for the costs of new spacecraft and rockets.
© Copyright 2006, The Huntsville Times
