decision to send an unmanned, quote, lifeboth, to the spacetation at the cost of $7 billion does nothing to solve this problem and largely duplicates services provided by the russians. we have spent nearly $10 billion onnthe constellation system that has achieved significant milestones and is oo its way, the administration's decision to cancel constellation has further stallee development and jeopardized ouu uudisputed leadership in space and that'' what it's all about. as i said many times before as a member of the space subcommittee, i'm concerned with proposed commercial directionof the space program while we have supported the development of cargo operations, i believe it's prudent we test cargo capabilities before risking the lives of our astronauts on newly developed systems. is there a viable market for the carriers with no backup, no information on it and the absence of that data, i fear we might be setting ourselves up for failure if and when the markets don't materialize. anyone can claim to take over commercial crew or take over the space program or the building of the next instruments of investigating space. buzz aldrin who supports commercial crew. i have read his ideas and i'm still looking for concrete data. it's easy to tart these programs and take them over and have the federal government to step in at great loss of time, great loss of international partners, a great loss of contractors, a great loss of employees and great loss of government for additional money to take over. i admire mr. aldrin and would like his suggestions. but in examining opinions and examining the options beyond the orbit when we might see the heavy lift system or consider it as a logical destination. we have been told that a new game change in technology development program will provide capabilities for access in the far reaches of spacee but we have very few specifics omission, goals and direction. . we continue to support the constellation program as currently authorized and appropriated by successive congresses. g.a.o. is continuing investigating whether nasa's improperly with holding funds and improperly applying the antideficiency act as a means of slowing constellation work. i believe that congress, and when i say congress i meen both democrats and republicans, congress has been cleared that -- clear that it support the continuation of constellation until it authorizes an alternative program. we no longer can wait for nasa to provide justification for its radical changes. time's runnnng out. our space station and those who man them, our many nasa employees, our international partners, our astronauts, await an answer that we can live with and we an lead with. i yield back my time. mr. carter: thank you. mr. hall, we're awfully proud to have him and he has been working a long and hard for any, many years to make sure that eeery time we shoot a human being into outer space we've ad to bring him back. you know, it's easy to develop a space program whether you can say, well, if the guy we shoot out there, if we lose him, it's no big deal, and there's some who develop the space programs this way. but we never developed it that way. and some people with say we're a greet dinosaur, this nasa. this great dinosaur comes from the basic premise thht makes --% part of what makes americans great, that every human life is impootant. therrfore you test and retest and retest again and you take another path and you find a new direction until you are assured% of one thing, that that precious human life you put upon that exploding bomb called a rocket, you're capable of putting that human life out into space and bringing it back. bringing he human being back alive.%% and i would argue that we're the only space program that has been a priority -- that that has been a priority. and that's what makes us so much more exceptional than others. is because we've had accidents but they were accidents. but our planned program didn't plan in expendability. we didn't plan for people to be expendable until we learned how to do it. we did it and we got through it and we made it work. it's a shame, it's a shame to have that kind of history of a program that has dedicated it self to exploring space and still caring about that one small little glimmer of spark called a human life, but we do it. we have no assurance that this new direction is even going to come close to having thht same basic spirit that created nasa. we are threatening a great human institution. i want to yield some more time to my friend, mr. bishop. mr. bishop: i thank the gentleman froo texas again as both he and mr. hall were very eloquent in pointing out problems that we are facing with the cancellation of nasa. i'd like to take a different -- not cancellation ---of the constellation program by nasa. i'd like to take one small detour for here to try to point out once again that the decision by this administration to cancel constellation by nasa was done arbitrarily, capriciously and actually without foresight of what the implications would be and there are unintended conssquences on our military side. for what this administration did not realize is that the people, the industrial base that builds ppthe rockets to send a man to e moon are the same people who build the rockets to shoot down north korean and iranian missiles that are coming at us. and this industrial base is there with the expertise. and if you fire 20,000 to 30,000 of that base, this is not a spigot you can turn on and off. and add them having coming back if indeed y somm miraculous idea you think you need to %% chaage directions and start ovee again. that is what we have found, that the impact on nasa has a unique, specific and dangerous impact on the defense of this country. because if we are having a missile defense system, the fact that we are going to fire 25,000 to 30,000 people in this industrial base means that those people will not be working on our missile defense system. the defense authorization act that passed this house and is now over in the senate, in the report language it coocluded that if indeed constellation is canceled, the cost to our military defense, for our missile defense program, will increase 40% to 100%. that the increase cost to anything that is -- any of our tactical missiles, the side %% winder missile, anyyhing that has that propulsion, it will increase the cost for us to build those 40% to 100%. the minute man three costs wwll double, the navy'ssmissile program cost will double and it's the time when secretary gates over at deeense has said they want the administration to find roughly $100 billion in cuts for next year's budget. now, did we ever take the time to figure out the implications of this program? not only are we firing 30,000 of our best and brightest, our scientists and engineers, not only are we ceding space to the chineseeand the russians and eventually the indians and the japanese, no longer are we forfeiting the game, no longer are we no longer taking a part, we're putting our missile defense system at risk at the same time. this administration has naively lurched into this program without considering the unintended consequences. and if could also say one thing in conclusion before i yield back to the gentleman from texas, there are three things that the nasa has done in trying to push this program of cutting% constellation that violates the obvious intent of congress. number one, congress passed in the omnibus appropriations bill+ language that said the constellation will not bb cut until congress approves those cuts. and nonetheless they first of all deferred the constellation contracts, didn't terminate them, they just deferred them, so the money would not flow. number two, they then moved the constellation manager, didn't fire him, they just moved him to disrupt the program. and number three, in a very novel, unique way, in fact, the spokesman said, well, these are unique circumstances, for the first time ever, ever in the history of nasa, they have said that termination costs, the liability of termination costs must come from existing contracts. nasa has never done that when it terminated a program. when congress told it to terminate a program they always appropriated money for the closing costs. what this means is that the premarket private sector companies that are building constellation right now have go% to fund their current contracts, take money out to terminate, which means they fire thhir employees and they turn to their subcontractors and they break those contracts so they fire their employees. this is all a concentrated effort on the -- on the part of nasa and this administration to destroy this program before congress has a chance to finalize our work and say %% whether we want to destroy it or not. i think it's very clear that this congress has never at any time given the indication to nasa that we think constellation should stop. but this is a program being done by the administration in violation of clearly the intent of congress and as the gentleman said maybe even under the specifics of the rule of law of congress to force us intooa -- into where congress does not want to go. this nation should not go. and this is a sad situation. this is sad. this is unprecedented on the pppart of nasa and it is not go for the country. i appreciate being able to be a part of this evening tonight because constellation is very, very important to this country. this is our future. we should not lose that. i yield back to the gentleman % from texas and thank you for letting me be a part of this. mr. carter: recap purring -- recapturing my time, as the gentleman was pointtng out something, it just popped into my head, the old civics course that everybody in this country at least used to take ii high school about the three branches of government that were created by our founders. what they did, the laws were written by the congress, the legislative branch, administered and enforced by the executive branch, which is the white house, and interpreted and held to the standards of the constitution by the judicial branch. and as the gentleman pointed out, this connress has never taken the position that we were going to trash the constellation. in fact, we wrote specific language that said thht constellation shall remain until congress acts. now, -- but the president is -- without a law or a direction by this congress, has decided to use magic triiks that have never been used before to delay to the point of disaster aad destroy the constellation. now, we just heard today that when judge poe got up here and talked that at least a court of thhs land has pointed out that the closing down of the gulf to offshore drilling was arbitrary and capricious and has granted the extraordinary relief that's very selldom done in the court system by creating an injunction against the president of the united states and the white house to both prevent them by one of the whims that they came up with of closing down drilling in the gulf, this court has said, sorry, boys, you can't do that. ok. now we've got a constitution and week of got a congress that has got a provision in a laws that% been passed as the law of this land to be enforced by the executive branch of this government that says that we will not destroy the constellation program until the congress decides to do so. but the president, who i guess didn't take civics in high school, has decided it doesn't really matter whether congress acts or not, he's going to destroy the program. i don't think that's the way it works. i don't thinkkthat's the way it's supposed to work. we are a country -- we like to say this, we recite this in a lot of places, we are a country of laws, not of men. it's not what man runs the white house or what man runs some position in this country, it's what the law is. and the law is assed by this congress and by other legislative bodies around the 50 states in this union. oour executive branch is to enforce the laws and uphold them. our judiciary is to remind them when they don't, and as they have dooe as recently as yesterday. what's kind of strange is the carter administration decided to cede the panama canal back, so america would no longer manage the panama canal. it was going to save us money to get rid of the panama canal. it's kind of funny. there's a chinese flag in this picture because the chinese manage the panama canal. that's kind of outsourcing american exceptionalism. we built that canal. now we are outsourcing the moon, potentially, to the chinese. under though because ma administration. and we're outssurce -- under the obama administration. we're outsourcing the spault program and the rockets that make this exceptional. this administration has been very critical about outsourcing outside the country of jobs. pointing fingers at lots of people about, you're destroying american jobs by outsourcing, what do you think you're doing with these 20,000 to 30,000 high-paying, technical, the great brain trust of america, you're outsourcing it to the chinese, the indians, and the russians. maybe the japanese. why shouldn't we be concerned about this, mr. president? i think that's the question we've got to ask ourselves. and i think we've got to start saying, how much are we willing to say we're no longer exceptional, we're going to outsource everything to somebody else? i believe the american people want to say to us here in congress, hey, wake up. give us a job like you've always given us a job and we as americans will do that job and do it better than anybody else in the world. we always have, we always will. i'm not ready to give up on ourselves. i don't think my colleagues are ready to give up on ourselves and the american people. we are still the exceptional people that put a man on the moon in a decade, like the president of the united states, john f. kennedy said. we're still the people who created the first basically % aircraft that you could fly out into outer space, the shuttle program, where we landed right there on a runway like an ordinary airplane, rather than parachuting them inno the ocean like the first programs we did. we have done wonders with nasa. and i hope, and i pray, and i think everybody else hopes and prays that the president will reconsider and allow congress to discuss this and allow congress to make decisions as to whether or not we're going to make these kinds of radical changes to the future of manned exploration of space. and whether, when we do if we %- change, we are protecting human life. all these things are important. all these things are something oh we oughttto be concerned about. righh now, we just have to be concerned about why. why this administration is giving up on american exceptionalism and outsourcing our space program to foreign countrres. ill yield whatever time mr. bishop would like to make a comment on that. mr. bishhp: i have only one last insight to give and i appreciate, once again, the gentleman from texas taking this time to point out how significant this issue is, but indeed, the constellation program was the way forward into the future. it was to replace the space shuttle. it went through the science. it is -- it is our future. it's being built by the private sector. yet we are deciding to can sell it with no other goal in mind. we do not have a plan. we donnt have a breasm don't have an idea for what the future may bring. there was a study done after the last space shuttle catastrophe that said there are two things that will destroy manned space flight, the mission of manned space flight and nasa. one is not to consider human safety, as the gentleman said, and number two not to have an + organized plan. i have, in a note of irony a flyer that came to our offfces from nasa, that tomorrow in the rayburn foyer, there will be the new era of innovation and discovery, which means there will be an interactive, all-day event highlighting nasa's robust earth and space science portion, cutting edge err naughtics and continued leadership in human flight. i am so grateful there will be an inttractive game that we in congress can play about space flight because if thh decisions of nasa and this administration are allowed, there woo't a real manned space flight for us, at least we have a game where we can remember what we used to do and what might have been. i yield back. mr. carter: hat is ironic. one of the things -- reclaiming my time, one of the things you hear from parents is, what am i going to do to get my kids to having their own imagination, not playing somebody else's video game. this sounds to me like somebody else's video game. you remember when we diverted %% satellites from protecting our troops in iraq to over the poles to check on global warming, what i'm hearing from this administration, their plan for nasa is to have low-orbit satellite programs to check on global warming. i forgot, we don't call it global warming anymore, it's called climate change. i apologize. it turns out we may not be warming. well, that's a whole other debate. but it seems like all the resources seem to go into -- to go forward -- to go toward desperately trying to prove that. i thank my friend for coming down, mr. bishop we came in this august body together and share a lot of concerns about the future, what we're doing. i'm really happy to to have bob bishop looking attthe scientific side of our world, he's got a great insight into it. i want to thank him for sharing that insight wiih us tonight, i want to thank the speaker for allows us to take this time to talk about something that we are proud of. we in texas have a lot to be proud of. one of the things we we point out that we're proud of is the manned space center in houston, texas. when you look on the texas map that tells you the great things to come see in texas we highly recommend people visit the space center. we know great thinged were done by great men and women at that place and continue to be done there. and to drive a stake in the heart of the space program is a tragedy not only for the state of texas buu for the whole united states. i think i can effectively argue, the world. let's not outsource another of our industries. let's not give up on american exceptionalism. let's go back and reconsider the obama administration's desire to trash this prooram and let's go back to putting us on a path with a plan, as mr. bishoo pointed out, to go out and explore those new frontiirs we have left to explore. with that, mr. speaker, i thank you for the time and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from ohio,,mr. ryan, is ecognized as the designee of the majority leader. mr. ryan: thank you, mr. ppeaker. i want to take this opportunity here on the house floor to spend a few minutes talking about some friends of mine who are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. i wanted to take a second here to say what good friends they are and what great americans they are and what great people % they are. bill and margie skolaski will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this week and they have been not only tremendous supporters of me, but great people in the community and i want to take this opportunity to wish them a happy anniversary. many, many more years. you've never been to a holiday breakfast unless you have been to their house, but i must say there's eggs and queesh and -- ppquiche and sausage and all kinds of different desserrs and there's not a day that goes by that i don't seed margiee+ somewhere that she doesn't want to bake me a cherry pie. i want to thank her for her generosity. she and her husband are two of the sweetest, kindest, nicest people in the community. they represent the things -- they treasure the things people in america needdto spend t