Democrats For Destroying NASA

PRESENTED BY EARTH, WIND, AND SHIRE

By a vote of 67-30, all GOP and sixteen of 47 Democratic Senators voted on Wednesday afternoon to install Jared Isaacman, the billionaire acolyte of neo-Nazi soon-to-be-trillionaire Elon Musk, as the administrator of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, knowing full well he plans to continue dismantling and privatizing NASA, in particular its earth science mission.

In Project Athena, his secret 62-page plan for DOGE-ing NASA written in May and leaked this fall, Isaacman wrote, “Take NASA out of the taxpayer funded climate science business and leave it for academia to determine.”

Here’s video of Isaacman celebrating his confirmation:

This destructive vote came in the immediate wake of the Trump regime’s announcement it was dismantling NASA’s sister earth-science institution, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, for “climate alarmism.”

Sixteen Democrats, including Commerce, Science, and Technology ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), joined all Republicans who voted to endorse the Trump-Musk-Isaacman assault on our planet.

In what can only be described as a sick joke, Cantwell prefaced her floor speech endorsing climate destroyer Isaacman by detailing the ongoing fossil-fueled climate disaster unfolding in Washington state, which took out power for hundreds of thousands of her constituents, with more blizzards and floods on the way.

Adding insult to injury, Cantwell said the bigoted climate denier Sean Duffy was an “excellent” interim administrator. In that role, Duffy announced NASA would eliminate “all the climate science,” and acted accordingly. She didn’t mention the hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels responsible for supercharging the storms, or the decades of work by climate scientists who have tried to prevent such disasters, and are now denigrated by Trump, Vought, Duffy, and Isaacman. She has also failed to mention Trump’s assault on NCAR.

The other Democrats who backed the Elon Musk ally include Democratic whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and DSCC chair Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, home to the shuttered Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Commerce members Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and Andy Kim of New Jersey; Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, home to the White Sands Test Facility; former NASA astronaut and EPW member Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona; EPW member Adam Schiff of California, home to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ames Research Center and Armstrong Flight Research Center; Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia, home to the Langley Research Center and Wallops Flight Facility; Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; and Angus King of Maine.

Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Iowa Republicans Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst were absent.

Isaacman made his billions as CEO of the Shift4 payment processing firm and has flown to space twice on SpaceX missions he financed himself. He co-founded Draken International, which trains pilots for the U.S. military. Isaacman is a pal and an extreme admirer of Elon Musk. Isaacman was nominated to be NASA Administrator back in December 2024, as Musk was setting up DOGE. Right before the vote on his confirmation, the White House pulled his nomination. He was renominated this fall.

In committee, Cantwell, Baldwin, and Fetterman joined Republicans to support his confirmation. Kim has not explained why he switched to support Isaacman in the final vote.

By statute, NASA’s first mission objective is “The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.” According to Isaacman, that fundamental science mission is downgraded, even denigrated, in favor of praise for Trump.

The science community’s doormat approach to the Isaacman nomination is infuriating. In particular, Bill Nye The Science Guy’s Planetary Society—which is fundraising with the message SAVE NASA SCIENCE, and is leading a coalition purporting to fight for NASA’s science budget—has been aggressively fluffing Isaacman.

Isaacman’s confirmation hearing took place on December 3rd, as NASA illegally moved forward with the gutting of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., home to 10,000 scientists and engineers, including the Science Mission Directorate and Engineering and Technology Directorate.

The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the flagship climate science center led by international luminaries such as James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, was illegally shuttered in the spring, during the tenure of SpaceX executive Michael Altenhofen, installed as special advisor to the NASA Administrator in January and as Deputy Chief of Staff from May to June 27th. Altenhofen is now expected to return to NASA under Isaacman.

Not coincidentally, Isaacman’s secret plan calls for the elimination of all the Goddard centers.

Isaacman’s first nomination hearing was on April 9th, where he enjoyed Cantwell’s support. The Trump administration announced plans to slash the space agency’s science budget by as much as 50 percent. You’d think that would have been top of mind for Isaacman, but his head is instead blissfully empty.

“I’m a humble nominee on the outside, hoping for a chance to contribute,” he tweeted in March, blatantly lying. “I don’t know anything about those supposed cuts, but the President said he’s targeting fraud, waste & abuse w/ a scalpel — not a hatchet.”

NASA now has its jug-eared hatchetman, thanks in part to the Senate Democrats.

At a hearing this morning on daunting and exigent task of protecting Americans from forever chemicals, polluter industry lobbyists called for exemptions from Superfund liability for real estate owners and water utilities and questioned how deadly PFAS and PFOS really are. Activist and lay minister Emily Donovan, who lives in a North Carolina community devastated by DuPont’s deadly carcinogens, blasted the polluter hacks for trying to pass the buck instead of cleaning up the land their clients own and the water supplies their clients manage.

Happy Hannukkah.

Hearings on the Hill:

• 10 AM: House Energy and Commerce Committee
     Environment Subcommittee
  The Impact of EPA’s CERCLA Designation for Two PFAS Chemistries and Potential Policy Responses to Superfund Liability Concerns

• 12 PM: House Homeland Security Committee
  Homeland Security Member Day

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