NASA Appropriations and Authorizations: A Fact Sheet

Congressional deliberations about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) often focus on the availability of funding. This fact sheet provides data on past, current, and proposed NASA appropriations. No bills have yet been introduced in the 115^th Congress proposing future-year authorizations of NASA appropriations.

Additional information on appropriations legislation affecting NASA is provided in CRS Report R44877, Overview of FY2018 Appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) and similar reports for prior years.¹ NASA issues of congressional interest are discussed further in CRS Report R43144, NASA: Issues for Authorization, Appropriations, and Oversight in the 114th Congress.

Table 1 shows appropriations for NASA from FY2013 through FY2018. The data for FY2013 through FY2017 include supplemental appropriations, rescissions, transfers, reprogramming, and, in the case of FY2013, sequestration. They are taken from NASA's congressional budget justifications for FY2015 through FY2019.² Congressional budget justifications are available on the NASA budget website (http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/) for the current year and for past years back to FY2002. The table data for FY2018 are as enacted by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (P.L. 115-141). For amounts not specified in that act, see pages H2094-H2096 of the explanatory statement, published in the Congressional Record on March 22, 2018.

The Trump Administration's budget request for FY2019 adopted a new account structure for NASA. It presented FY2017 amounts adjusted for comparability with the new structure, but not FY2018 enacted amounts, because final FY2018 appropriations had not yet been enacted at the time the FY2019 budget was released. Table 2 shows FY2017 appropriations, adjusted for comparability; the Administration's request for FY2019; FY2019 amounts contained in the House Committee on Appropriations committee print dated May 7, 2018; and FY2019 amounts that would be authorized by the NASA Authorization Act of 2018 (H.R. 5503) as ordered reported by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on April 17, 2018. Additional columns will be added to this table as Congress acts on FY2019 authorization and appropriations legislation for NASA.

Figure 1 shows NASA's total annual budget authority from the agency's establishment in FY1958 to FY2018, in both current dollars and inflation-adjusted FY2018 dollars.

Figure 1. NASA Funding, FY1958-FY2018

Source: Compiled by CRS. FY1958-FY2008 from National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Aeronautics and Space Report of the President: Fiscal Year 2008 Activities, http://history.nasa.gov/presrep2008.pdf, Table D-1A. FY2009-FY2012 from NASA congressional budget justifications, FY2011-FY2014. FY2013-FY2018 as in Table 1. Current dollars deflated to FY2018 dollars using GDP (chained) price index from President's budget for FY2019, Historical Table 10.1, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/hist10z1-fy2019.xlsx. Note: Transition quarter between FY1976 and FY1977 not shown.

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