Space
Access Society Political Action Alert 6/4/14
Short
Fuse - Action Required By 9 am EDT Thursday 6/5/14
Please
Redistribute As Widely As Possible
In a subcommittee markup Tuesday, Senator Richard
Shelby (R AL) inserted a requirement in the Senate NASA funding bill (formally
known as the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Fiscal
Year 2015 Appropriations Bill, "Senate CJS Appropriation" for short)
to provide, he stated, "greater accountability and budgetary transparency
in the commercial crew program and future commercial cargo missions."
What this actually is, according to the story at dothanfirst.com,
is this:
· Language requiring NASA to ensure that companies
participating in the competition for the development of Commercial Crew launch
vehicles be required to submit certified cost and pricing data (consistent with
FAR requirements)
· Language requiring NASA to require certified cost
and pricing data for the new round of contracts for future cargo resupply
missions.
In other words, it's a poison pill for Commercial
Crew and Commercial Cargo, two programs whose ongoing success threatens to undermine
the justification for Senator Shelby's missionless and massively wasteful
hometown government mega-rocket project, SLS.
Background
Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew already do a
great deal of cost reporting, according to NASA's own voluminous Commercial
Space Transportation Document Library.
Senator Shelby's assertion that this is about ensuring "that
taxpayers get the best value for their dollar" is patent nonsense - by
NASA's own study, one Commercial Cargo launcher development came in at a tenth
or less NASA's likely in-house costs, and Commercial Crew looks set to follow
in saving massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, with one bidder talking about
prices as low as $20m a seat (versus the current Russian price of over $70m a
seat and climbing, not to mention retired Shuttle's costs of well into the
hundreds of millions per seat).
These two programs are on course to save massive
amounts of taxpayer dollars, unless Commercial Cargo & Crew end up
crippled by deliberately destructive contracting requirements.
To be absolutely clear, imposing full FARs cost-plus
contract-type accounting controls on a commercial-style operation increases
costs from 50% to 200%, depending on the size and details of the commercial
operation. It will also delay the
commercial operation for months or longer while the intensely detailed
account-for-every-rivet procedures are being imposed.
It also
potentially reveals to both domestic and international rivals a great deal of
competition-sensitive confidential commercial information.
The FARs, section 15.403-1, “Prohibition on
obtaining certified cost or pricing data”, section (b), actually says "The
contracting officer shall not require certified cost or pricing data... ..when a commercial item is being
acquired."
The Cargo Resupply Services (and
until quite recently also Commercial Crew development) contracts are commercial
fixed-price contracts, and as such FARs-type “certified cost and pricing data”
is none of the government’s business. By law, and for good reason, the
government isn’t allowed to ask for that in such contracts. If there is to be any hope for both programs
to continue as astonishingly efficient and affordable as they've been so far,
they must continue on a commercial basis.
If Senator Shelby's narrowly targeted
modification to the FARs stands, we modestly propose that it should be
broadened to apply to all the other suppliers of Station services to NASA - the
various international partners, and the high-cost Russian Soyuz providers in
particular.
What's that you say, the Europeans
and Japanese and Russians wouldn't stand for NASA insisting on detailed
tracking and cost-accounting for every rivet?
OK, to be totally fair, let's expand
this requirement to all US government purchases of commercial supplies and
services. You say it would cause a major
part of the US economy to grind to a halt?
Well, yes, it would. Which is apparently the point of targeting
Commercial Cargo and Commercial Crew with it.
Senator Shelby looks here to be engaging in straightforward sabotage
against rivals of his massively wasteful home-town government rocket project. (Which, we might add, is less than a model of
efficiency and cost transparency.)
We try to maintain a sense of humor
about the ongoing waste of money that is SLS, as long as it doesn't directly
interfere with anything useful at NASA. This
bill language is way across the line, and cannot be allowed to stand.
Action
The full Senate Appropriations Committee
marks this bill at 10 am tomorrow, Thursday. The time to contact your Senator
(if any) on the Committee and raise (polite) hell is today, tonight, and
tomorrow morning before 9 am EDT.
If you're from a state with a
Senator on the following list, go to this
page for their phone number or web contact info, then give their office a
call (preferred) or write them a message.
If you call and get a live answer, ask for whoever handles NASA
appropriations. If you then get that
staffer live, tell them who you are and where you're from, give them your
message briefly and politely, answer any questions they have, thank them for
their time, and ring off. If you get
shunted to voicemail (as seems most likely, especially tonight) state the
message, briefly and politely, then ring off.
The gist of the message (put it in
your own words if you can): "I'm [your name] from [your town in that
senator's state.] I'm calling about a problem with the Senate NASA
Appropriation. NASA's Commercial Crew
and Commercial Cargo programs will be required to do full detailed cost-plus
accounting despite being commercial programs.
This will damage both programs by imposing delays and increasing
costs. Please fix this in Thursday's
markup. Thanks for your time."
Committee Members
Mikulski, Barbara A. (MD) , Chairman
Leahy, Patrick J. (VT)
Harkin, Tom (IA)
Murray, Patty (WA)
Feinstein, Dianne (CA)
Durbin, Richard J. (IL)
Johnson, Tim (SD)
Landrieu, Mary L. (LA)
Reed, Jack (RI)
Pryor, Mark L. (AR)
Tester, Jon (MT)
Udall, Tom (NM)
Shaheen, Jeanne (NH)
Merkley, Jeff (OR)
Begich, Mark (AK)
Coons, Christopher A. (DE)
Shelby, Richard C. (AL), Ranking Member
Cochran, Thad (MS)
McConnell, Mitch (KY)
Alexander, Lamar (TN)
Collins, Susan M. (ME)
Murkowski, Lisa (AK)
Graham, Lindsey (SC)
Kirk, Mark (IL)
Coats, Daniel (IN)
Blunt, Roy (MO)
Moran, Jerry (KS)
Hoeven, John (ND)
Johanns, Mike (NE)
Boozman, John (AR)
Space Access Society
http://www.space-access.org
space.access@mindspring.com