The Obama administration's request for a funding boost next year for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration faces a key test this week as House Republicans take up their spending measure for the agency.

The House Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee will vote Thursday on its measure to set spending levels for the Commerce Department and NOAA for 2012. It is one of three subcommittee markups scheduled for Thursday, as the House Appropriations Committee pushes to get its bills out this summer.

The administration requested $5.5 billion for NOAA, including significant boosts for its climate and weather satellites. But House Republicans are expected to allot the agency significantly less.

At a subcommittee hearing earlier this year, Chairman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) made it clear that NOAA has little chance of receiving the $1 billion it requested for satellite programs next year -- at least not from the House (ClimateWire, April 4).

"I wish we could fund all of what you're asking for, but we're facing a fiscal crisis in this country," Wolf told NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco at the hearing.

Wolf encouraged Lubchenco to work with his panel to cut NOAA's other activities to ensure adequate satellite funding. But Lubchenco said that the satellite funding is so large compared to the rest of the agency's budget, it would be hard to manage such an offset.

The administration's fiscal 2012 budget request seeks $5.498 billion for NOAA, a slight cutback from last year's request but a 16 percent increase over levels that Congress agreed upon in its funding deal for 2011.

The biggest request in NOAA's budget is for its Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), a weather and environmental satellite program formed out of the scraps of a defunct effort on satellites between the science agency and the Air Force. The White House requested even more, $1.070 billion, for JPSS in 2012. That represents a $712 million increase over 2010 funding -- a tough sell in an era of budget cuts on Capitol Hill.

The agency had also requested a major increase for the program in fiscal 2011. The continuing resolution Congress approved earlier this year provided one-third of the money that administration officials said was needed for the satellites.

In light of the funding shortfall, Lubchenco and other Commerce Department officials have tried to raise the programs' profile. Agency officials have repeatedly said that without the spending boost, the United States could face critical gaps in data needed for weather forecasting, with the potential for an 18-month gap in data. NOAA hosted its annual hurricane forecast at a satellite facility to draw attention to the use of the technology.

The administration's proposal would also reorganize the agency's climate change portfolio and create a National Climate Service -- a proposal that does not sit well with House Republicans. Lawmakers blocked funding for the Climate Service in their 2011 spending deal and are expected to propose to do so in the 2012 proposal for NOAA.

Schedule: The markup is Thursday, July 7, at 10:15 a.m. in H140 of the Capitol.