Nick Lampson: “I want to commend not only the ranking member and the chairman for the significant work that has been done to bring this…”

“I want to commend not only the ranking member and the chairman for the significant work that has been done to bring this report to us, but all of our colleagues on the conference committee for bringing the first conference report for our NASA authorization bill in 8 years. I know the amount of time and hard work that each put into this bill, as well as the tremendous work of the committee staff, especially on our side, Dick Obermann, and I appreciate every bit of it. I look forward to lending my support to this conference report, but I want to express my continued concerns about Section 127. Section 127 in its current form retains subsection (a), Replacement Structure, which is a general prohibition against NASA's use of funds authorized for the definition, design, procurement or development of an inflatable space structure to replace any International Space Station components scheduled for launch under the June 1999 Assembly Sequence. Subsection (b) has been revised to reflect an exception to permit NASA to lease or otherwise use a commercially provided inflatable habitation module under certain specified conditions. As currently included in the June 29 House draft, Section 128 would effectively prevent NASA from jointly developing an inflatable habitation module with a commercial partner, even if NASA's contribution to such joint development were to be constrained to NASA's planned investment and related costs.”