By Jackie Wattles, CNN
(CNN) — Congressmembers from both sides of the aisle are vowing to reject the White House’s proposal to slash NASA’s 2027 budget by nearly a quarter.
The pushback came as NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman appeared before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on Wednesday, during a hearing largely focused on President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts and how they might impact the space agency’s lofty ambitions amid a new space race.
Republican Rep. Brian Babin of Texas made clear he does not support the White House proposal, noting that Congress rejected similar plans last year, and he is “confident that they are going to be rejected again.”
“I simply do not believe that this budget proposal is capable of supporting what President Trump himself has directed the agency to accomplish over the course of his two terms, nor what Congress has directed by law,” Babin said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California and the committee’s ranking member, added, “That’s just not a winning strategy.”
Democrats on the committee also alleged that NASA leadership moved forward last year with implementing parts of Trump’s proposed 2026 budget cuts despite the fact that federal lawmakers rejected the plan in their annual appropriations bill.
Under the US Constitution, federal lawmakers are given the power to enact a budget. While the sitting president routinely issues an annual “request” in an attempt to steer Congress, the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate — and signed by the president — are the final authority on federal spending.
House Democrats allege that NASA authorities last year may have violated that constitutional framework in attempting to enact the presidential budget request, or PBR. Such moves affected at least three NASA science and research programs, according to a report released Friday by Democratic staff with the House Science committee.
NASA did not reply to CNN’s request for comment on the report.
Lofgren said in the hearing that the alleged actions took place before Isaacman, who was confirmed for the job in December, took over at the agency. But Isaacman did not directly respond to claims that NASA acted inappropriately.
The agency does have some ability to squash or alter course on programs that are in the early stages of development, particularly if the law is unclear about Congressional intent for a project, noted Cristina Chaplain, a former NASA auditor with the federal Government Accountability Office. That could have been the case for some of the projects at issue in the Democrats’ report, Chaplain noted.
But Lofgren said she wanted to ensure Isaacman would “adhere to the law and what Congress has enacted.”
Isaacman responded, “Let me just say — from the get-go — of course, we will always follow the law at NASA.”
In his opening remarks on Wednesday, Isaacman had also argued for some of the project cancelations mapped out in Trump’s latest 2027 budget request. The programs pegged for closure include one designed to return the first soil sample from Mars and phasing out NASA’s massive Space Launch System moon rocket — which powered the Artemis II lunar flyby mission earlier this month — in favor of commercial rocket options.
“The President’s budget supports investments in aeronautics that will advance civil, commercial and national security, aviation, especially next generation air transportation systems for safer air traffic control,” Isaacman said.
What Trump’s budget says
The president’s 2027 budget request, released in early April, includes a proposal to give a billion-dollar boost to the agency’