Rob Bishop: “Congress made its voice very clear last year when we specifically told NASA, Constellation is our program of record, and…”

“Congress made its voice very clear last year when we specifically told NASA, Constellation is our program of record, and you will not cut funding to Constellation. It's very clear that Congress has never changed that position. Well, this is speculation, but nor do I think we would, given our own choice of what to do. But as the gentleman from Texas clearly illustrated, there are some things that NASA is doing right now that appear--I don't want to try and ascribe motives--but they appear clearly to try and force the issue so that by the time Congress goes through its process of coming up with a budget and appropriations process and language directing what the bureaucracies will do, in this case NASA, that this will be a fait accompli. So the idea of withholding the derivatives was not a reduction of their contracts, but it had the same effect. The idea of taking the Constellation manager and reassigning him had a specific effect.”