Lamar Smith: “I believe this is the first time this Subcommittee or any Committee has had a hearing on this particular subject.”

With clear Congressional direction, strong White House leadership, and NASA's tremendous expertise, we have all the resources available to make significant progress in human space exploration.

First of all, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) for those nice comments. And she is right, this was a very bipartisan effort and a very bipartisan bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the…

Now that the Independent Review Board has completed its work, we should review the decades-long JWST cost overruns and schedule delays.

I support the continuation of JWST to mission completion and appreciate Administrator Bridenstine's efforts to improve contractor performance.