The new head of NASA
is criticized as “a climate denier with no scientific background who has made a career out of ignoring science.” President Trump’s pick, Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, is approved along party lines.
The Senate on Thursday narrowly confirmed Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., as NASA administrator, despite deep concerns from Democrats that he lacks the scientific and management expertise to lead the space agency.
The vote to install the three-term lawmaker was 50-49. President Donald Trump had initially tapped Bridenstine for the post last year, but his nomination stalled amid Democratic criticisms as well as some reticence from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said Thursday that NASA should be led by a professional with a background in space.
But Rubio ultimately sided with all other Republicans to confirm Bridenstine as the NASA chief in spite of his hesitations, arguing that Trump deserves to have his team in place across the administration.
“I was not enthused about the nomination. Nothing personal about Mr. Bridenstine. NASA is an organization that needs to be led by a space professional,” Rubio said before the confirmation vote Thursday afternoon. But “my view of it is, and it has been the tradition of the Senate for the entire distance of the republic, that we give great deference to the president on choosing qualifications.”
Bridenstine’s confirmation comes at a critical time for the agency, which is preparing to return to the moon, and to restore human spaceflight from United States soil, a capability that was lost when the space shuttle program was retired in 2011.
Bridenstine is a former naval aviator who ran the Tulsa Air and Space Museum before coming to Congress in 2013.
An avid supporter of space exploration, he sponsored the American Space Renaissance Act, a wideranging bill that touched on national security, how best to deal with debris in space and how to regulate the commercial space industry.
But Democrats seized on Bridenstine’s lack of scientific expertise, as well as his comments on climate change, to make their case that Bridenstine was unfit to lead the agency.
“James Bridenstine is a climate denier with no scientific background who has made a career out of ignoring science,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said Thursday.