
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990                   TAG: 9006140022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BUSH SEEKS INCREASE FOR NASA SPENDING

The Bush administration will ask congressional negotiators at high-level budget talks to give special treatment to NASA, one of the president's chief domestic priorities, officials said Wednesday.

The officials, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said the White House would propose that negotiators work out a specific spending figure for next year's NASA budget.

In budget summits of past years, administration and congressional officials have agreed to a single spending amount covering thousands of domestic programs, including NASA. The budgets for individual agencies were then determined by Congress during the regular legislative process.

President Bush would greatly enhance his role in determining NASA's budget if it is negotiated directly between White House and congressional negotiators.

The administration's proposal to consider NASA separately would leave the thousands of remaining domestic programs vulnerable to cuts that may be agreed to by budget bargainers. Negotiators, meeting Wednesday for a seventh time, are looking for ways to shrink next year's federal deficit by $45 billion to $60 billion.

Many lawmakers would be likely to reject Bush's proposal to negotiate separately over NASA, said aides who asked to not be identified.

They said Bush's idea would protect his pet project while leaving their favorite programs exposed to potential spending cuts.

In his budget for fiscal 1991, Bush proposed giving NASA $15.2 billion, a 24 percent increase over this year's $12.3 billion. That was the largest increase Bush requested for any of the government's major agencies.

"The exploration of space has benefits for the United States that go far beyond the quantifiable," Bush said in his budget, which he presented in January.

Congress has so far been less generous with the space agency.

NASA would receive $13.4 billion next year under a fiscal 1991 budget approved in May by the House. A separate spending plan approved by the Senate Budget Committee last month would give the agency $14.2 billion.

Both congressional budgets were written by majority Democrats.

by CNB