Washington Updates

by Rachel Hendrix, intern, Space Foundation, Washington, D.C., officeand Jillianne Pierce, Space Foundation Government Affairs Associate On Nov. 2, President Obama signed H.R. 1314, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which will boost federal spending for the year by $50 billion. It is still unclear how this agreement will affect appropriations for NASA and NOAA programs. On…

On Oct. 8, the Space Foundation’s Washington, D.C., office hosted a Space Power Breakfast, with featured speaker Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James. The breakfast was attended by nearly 80 congressional staff, industry executives, and various officials from U.S. government departments and agencies that are responsible for space, plus the Space Foundation’s CEO…

Shelli Brunswick, Space Foundation Chief Operating Officer, spent a week in Washington, D.C., during October meeting with a number of officials to promote various Space Foundation programs, including its new Faga Forum on Space Intelligence, to be offered for the first time Feb. 10, 2016, and its new Space in the Community program, promoting STEM…

by Jillianne Pierce, Space Foundation Government Affairs Associate On Oct. 8, the Space Foundation D.C. team attended lunch at the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, where Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham presented an update of Space Foundation business. That same week, the team attended briefings at the Embassy of Sweden about U.S.-Swedish space collaboration.…

by Jillianne Pierce, Space Foundation Government Affairs Associate  Congress returned from recess after the Labor Day holiday, and resumed working with the threat of a government shutdown looming. On Friday, Sept. 25, Speaker of the House John Boehner unexpectedly announced his resignation from the Speakership and from his seat in Congress at the end of…

by Jillianne Pierce, Space Foundation Government Affairs Associate August was a relatively quiet month in the Capitol, as Congress was in recess for the summer. On Aug. 5, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden sent a letter to notify Congress that due to reductions in funding for the agency’s Commercial Crew program over the past several years,…