CLEVELAND — Local business leaders from across Northeast Ohio are calling on Congress to avoid deep cuts to NASA Glenn's budget.
Last month, News 5 broke the news that the White House’s proposed budget for Northeast Ohio’s NASA Glenn Research Center and the Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky calls for cutting about 554 jobs over the next year.
RELATED: White House budget proposes cutting 554 NASA
Glenn jobs
When compared to last year's budget, that amounts to a 38% cut of all federal NASA civil servants in the area.
NASA Glenn currently employs about 1,400 civil servants. The proposal calls for trimming that number to 837.
Lawmakers are scheduled to begin reviewing that budget proposal on Thursday.
Read the budget by clicking here.
The budget shows Glenn’s aeronautics program would be just about cut in half, from 399 employees to 182.
"For our region, this could be upwards of over 1,000 individuals between both civil servants and contractors that work directly at NASA Glenn," Baiju Shah, president & CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership, said.
Earlier this week, Governor DeWine sent a letter to Vice President Vance about the proposed cuts.
Read the letter here:
News 5 has highlighted Glenn’s aeronautics division over the years, from a push to bring back commercial supersonic flight over the continental United States to helping map out a highway in the sky as more drones and self-driving aircraft enter the airspace.
The only NASA facility hit harder than Glenn in this budget proposal in terms of staffing would be the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, which would see a 40% cut in staffing. In total, the proposed budget sees NASA's staffing going from 16,529 to 11,853.
“Shrinking NASA Glenn’s capacity ripples through our business community, impacts our talent pipelines and STEM careers, reduces our competitiveness and threatens America’s economic leadership and national security,” Matt Dolan, CEO of TeamNEO, said in a statement. “We must champion NASA Glenn and NASA and also continue our efforts to bring more of NASA here.”
In a statement to News 5 on Wednesday, Congressman Max Miller said:
“I have long been an advocate for NASA Glenn, going as far as pushing the administration to move NASA HQ to Glenn. I have made it clear to Chairman Cole of the House Appropriations Committee that any budget cuts to NASA Glenn would be a misguided and costly mistake. I will continue to work with elected leaders in Washington and Ohio to expand NASA’s footprint in Ohio.”
In an interview with News 5's John Kosich last month, Sen. Bernie Moreno said that the budget put forth by the Senate will be more favorable to NASA Glenn.
"We have amazing resources at NASA Glenn, and we're going to beef up those resources," Sen. Moreno said. "We're going to add functionality to NASA Glenn. It's been a center that's been around even before NASA was created, and we're going to make certain it has got a long thriving future."
Earlier this year, local politicians made their pitch for NASA to relocate its headquarters and 1,700 employees to Northeast Ohio and the Glenn Research Center:
"If the federal government and President Trump is serious about cutting the cost of waste, fraud and abuse and how to relocate other departments and agencies throughout the rest of the country, there’s no better spot than Cleveland, Ohio," Rep. Max Miller said at an event on April 23.
"We want NASA to grow here," Gov. Mike DeWine said at that same event in April.
This budget proposal does not mention any plans about moving headquarters when its lease is up in Washington, D.C., in 2028, and we’re told no decision on that has been made.
A spokesperson at NASA's headquarters previously told News 5 that this budget is not finalized. However, Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, did say the following about the budget: “We must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. That means making strategic decisions – including scaling back or discontinuing ineffective efforts not aligned with our moon and mars exploration priorities."
"I don’t think there’s a full appreciation of what the agency does in terms of its innovations whether it's around space communication, aeronautics, power and energy, material sciences, how that contributes to life beyond space and earth, but how it contributes to national security," Shah added.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard, on Facebook Clay LePard News 5 or email him at Clay.LePard@WEWS.com.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
