THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 12, 1995 TAG: 9507120383
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN AND SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A House subcommittee's proposal to close three major NASA facilities, including the Langley Research Center in Hampton, would benefit the constituents of two key subcommittee members from California and Ohio.
But experts cautioned against taking the plan too seriously. Some saw it more as a political ploy to force NASA to accelerate its plans for cutting costs than as a realistic budgetary option.
``I don't really see this happening,'' said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. ``They (the subcommittee) wanted to send a message, and obviously they sent a very loud message.''
The plan, revealed Monday night, would shut Langley, the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama by 1998. Most of their work would be shifted to other NASA centers, saving about $130 million per year, the subcommittee contends.
Most of Goddard's functions would go to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., just outside the district of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee.
Most of Langley's missions could be transferred to NASA centers in California and Ohio. One of those, the Lewis Research Center, is a major employer in the neighboring congressional district of Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat. Lewis also would get some of the functions of the Marshall center.
U.S. Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, a Republican whose district includes Langley, said he talked twice Tuesday with Lewis.
``I told him how very stupid and inane I thought this proposition was,'' Bateman said. ``And the surprising part was he didn't disagree with me.''
Bateman suggested that Langley is being caught in a cross-fire between the administration and congressional leaders who are committed to reducing federal spending.
The legislative process that would have to be complete for closure is just getting started, and ``my prediction is that at the end of the day, Langley Research Center will not be closed,'' Bateman said.
But in the meantime, he said, he's ``not taking this lightly.''
The plan still must go through the full House Appropriations Committee, probably later this week. And if it survives there, the measure would then be heard on the House floor.
Afterward, it would face similar hurdles in the Senate, where it would likely meet stiff resistance from Virginia, Maryland and Alabama senators.
On Tuesday, Virginia Sen. John Warner already was preparing letters to send to committee and subcommittee heads ``conveying strong disapproval'' of the closure proposal, his spokeswoman said.
Late Monday, the House subcommittee approved a measure setting NASA's overall budget for fiscal year 1996 at $13.54 billion, or about $837 million less than this year's amount. The Clinton administration suggested a $720 million cut next year and no closures.
With a work force of about 5,000 government employees and private contractors, Langley is one of the linchpins of the Hampton Roads economy. NASA's own reorganization plan calls for the elimination of about 1,000 of those jobs by the end of the decade.
While the closure proposal stems from debate over NASA's 1996 budget, the space agency also is struggling with other reductions planned this year.
Clinton already has vetoed a bill that would have cut federal spending by $16.4 billion, including nearly $200 million earmarked for NASA, this budget year, which ends Sept. 30.
A new reduction plan, at $16.3 billion, would kill about $204 million from NASA's budget this year, said Keith Henry, a NASA spokesman at Langley. That measure is still being negotiated in Washington, although Clinton urged Republicans and Democrats Tuesday to quickly pass budget legislation.
For Langley, renowned for its expertise in aeronautics, the proposal could slash about $6.5 million from hypersonics research, which aims to develop a ``space plane'' that one day might fly from airports into orbit.
The subcommittee's closure option would order NASA to begin work in 1996 on a specific plan to close the three centers and shift their functions elsewhere. by CNB