Guarding NASA

If controversy takes down Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the space agency would lose a fierce defender.

Self-preservation is the law of the jungle in Congress, so House Republicans are beginning to worry about the political fallout from the controversies swirling about Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, whose fund-raising activity and overseas travel is being scrutinized.

But Republicans aren't the only ones whose fortunes may be tied to DeLay's fate. Just a few blocks away from the Capitol is the headquarters of a federal agency that stands to suffer a debilitating loss in the event DeLay fails to weather the storm. That agency is NASA. There are lots of members of Congress who look out for NASA's interests (the agency is, after all, skilled at parceling out contracts and projects across the political landscape), but none of its benefactors is quite like DeLay.

A self-described "space nut," DeLay has been a friend to NASA since he first arrived in Washington. Over the course of his career, he has supported big-ticket items such as the International Space Station and also tended to mundane needs such as funding for a wider road into the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

When he speaks publicly about NASA, it is with a boyish wonder and an uncharacteristic eloquence. But he can be fierce in defending the idea of human space exploration. When former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, then in office just a few months, appeared in 2002 before the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, DeLay greeted him with a volley of tough questions: "Do you know anything about NASA?" he demanded. "Are you coming in with a single goal of putting the books in order? Is there a passion for the big picture of space? Do you care about exploration? Do you understand how important it is to continue sending people into space?

"You seem to have a timid, anemic plan for human space flight," DeLay added.

There is, of course, a more practical and calculating side to DeLay's relationship with NASA. His congressional district always has been home to many of the workers at Johnson Space Center. Now, after DeLay's stewardship of the infamous 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan, the center itself is within the borders of his 22nd District.

Just as that was no coincidence, neither was NASA's good fortune in the fiscal 2005 appropriations bill. When the VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee cut the administration's NASA request by $1.1 billion, DeLay insisted that the measure would not get a vote on the floor unless the funding was increased. After the full committee then approved the bill without restoring the proposed cuts, DeLay went straight to the White House. Within hours, a presidential veto threat was issued.

Ultimately, with some help from the administration, Congress saw things DeLay's way. In the last hours before the final omnibus spending bill was passed in November, DeLay's tenacity got NASA the full $16.2 billion budget request-a 5 percent increase at a time when most other agencies were licking their wounds.

This year, NASA again stands to benefit from the efforts of its powerful ally. With DeLay as the driving force, in February the House Appropriations Committee adopted a controversial reorganization proposal that eliminated three subcommittees, including the one that shortchanged NASA last year. Republicans said the reshuffling streamlined the committee, but some Democrats charged that the plan was DeLay's payback to the panel for stiffing NASA-as well as his attempt to place the agency in a more favorably inclined subcommittee's jurisdiction.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Either way, it's another reminder that DeLay's reverence for manned space flight, his constituency imperative and unrivaled power make him NASA's irreplaceable man in Congress.