As looks exceedingly likely, who would replace him as chairman of the house appropriations committee for NASA?
If he goes down as part of a big GOP sweep that restores them to a majority, then presumably it would be Frank Wolf, who might be favorably disposed to commercial, given that Wallops is in his state, though not his district. Culberson taking over would be a disaster, given some of the ignorant comments he’s been making about the new plan.
But if Mollohan loses, but the Dems retain control, who would replace him? I hope it wouldn’t be Chaka Fatah, but I think he’s the most senior member, other than Obey (whose seat is also shaky). None of them have much NASA in their districts, other than Schiff (JPL).
Anyway, none of this would be as big a problem as Dick Shelby replacing Barbara Mikulski, from the standpoint of getting something useful out of NASA.
But if anyone has better insight than me (probably not hard), please chime in.
I’m not familiar with Culberson’s comments, but our family used to live in his district (northwest side of Houston) and he flat out got the job done on a much-needed expansion of Interstate 10 between the west side of the 610 loop out to Katy. Houston’s mayor (prior to Bill White) had diverted a lot of money originally slated for highway upgrades into police expansion, which worked wonders for lowering crime but made traffic pretty much unbearable between Houston and Katy, where most of the metropolitan growth is still occurring.
Culberson pretty much mandated 24×7 work on the I-10 expansion and it got done FAST. It has worked wonders with the traffic on that side of town (some stretches of road, including feeders, is 13 lanes in each direction).
Hopefully if the job goes to him then someone can educate/influence him appropriately. I think he is perceived as someone who gets things done, so what he tries to accomplish is key.
> None of them have much NASA in their districts, other than Schiff (JPL).
Schiff’s actually my congressman, so that reminds me that I should send his office a message asking for his support on NASA’s FY2011 budget.
BTW, Mollohan has the Clarksburg NASA center in his district.
Yes Virginia! Nasa has a small center in WV!
Make that Fairmont.
Clarksburg—-Fairmont—-6—-1/2 dozen—.
I seem to recall that despite the VA/Orbital/COTS connection Wolf recently said some truly dumb things about commercial space and the budget proposals. Jack Kennedy down there posted something about it, I think.
Ron Paul he’s from Texas eh? How far from Houston though?
Culberson sounds like the sort of petty fascist who makes the trains run on time, but could give two figs about conservative or libertarian principles about small government and free enterprise. He defines the comment that republicans don’t believe in capitalism outside the atmosphere.
Find out who in Californias delegation is being bought by Google, since Google is tight with NASA/Ames.
Wow, Mike Lorrey, such a thoughtful and measured response! Hey there are a few other trolls on this site I would like to introduce to you.
FWIW, Ron Paul’s district is the 14th, which includes Friendswood, Galveston, Texas City, Alvin, and a lot of communities that work at the Johnson Space Center. I doubt there is another district in Texas with stronger economic ties to NASA.
Ron Paul is re-elected with very large margins (last election he got 80% of the vote) despite his strong opposition to NASA: “We must recognize the government led space program is dead and the corpse must be buried as soon as possible. Any defense functions should be put under the military, and the rest of NASA should be sold to private operators.”
Regarding your attack on Culberson, virtually everyone in the House and the Senate would fit your description. Why so angry?
Jiminator, did you watch the televised hearings? Culberson was out for Garvey’s blood and, in between vicious comments about her, tried to get every person from NASA testifying to “admit” that the plan had been authored by her.