House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chair Lamar Smith wants to "Rebalance" NASA mission

Huffington Post

GOP Plots To Clip NASA Wings As It Tweets Climate Change Updates

Budget to be “rebalanced” to restrict agency to space.

NASA continues to steadfastly tweet urgent climate change information despite a critical president and GOP efforts to force the agency to stick to space and forget the Earth.

The Trump administration aims to largely restrict NASA to focus on its space missions and abandon climate change research, which is a part of its Earth Sciences Division.

The division, which accounts for just $2 billion of NASA’s $20 billion budget, also includes gathering weather information, which the Republicans don’t aim to drop.

At a House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing last Thursday, Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said he wants a “rebalancing” of NASA’s mission to allow other agencies to take over its climate change research. But it’s unclear which agencies could pick up the slack. The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, climate-change sceptic Scott Pruitt, has vowed to cut the EPA’s budget and staff in the wake of Trump’s campaign promise to “get rid” of the agency, notes The New York Times. The EPA has also been under a Trump administration gag order so the agency is currently unable to tweet anything about climate change.

Meanwhile, NASA daily tweets climate change updates @NASAclimate and on Facebook with frequent dire warnings about rapid global changes.