The House Appropriations Committee will vote this week on a spending bill that would cut funding next year for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The full committee will vote Wednesday on the fiscal 2012 bill for the Commerce Department. The markup will also consider the spending bill for the legislative branch.

House Republicans cleared the spending bills through subcommittee last week. The Commerce proposal would cut NOAA's budget to $4.485 billion in fiscal 2012, $1 billion less than President Obama's request and $103 million less than the agency received in 2011.

It could pose some problems for NOAA's effort to launch a new next-generation weather and climate satellite program, the Joint Polar Satellite System. The satellites would receive $812 million in 2012, roughly 20 percent less than the $1.070 billion the agency sought.

That is still an improvement over the 2011 spending deal enacted in April, which set aside $382 million for JPSS -- a fraction of the $910 million NOAA requested.

But Republicans and Democrats on the committee have clashed over the funding levels.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the full committee, said last week that the committee should have complied with the request for the program. Without that money, he said the program would end up costing more in future years.

"Cutting the president's budget request yet again in fiscal year 2012 will only increase the delays and is expected to cause a significant gap in our forecasting capability, diminishing our ability to anticipate hurricanes and other natural disasters," Dicks said. "Curtailing these critical investments is remarkably shortsighted, especially when lives are at risk."

But Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), the chairman of the subcommittee that drafted the Commerce bill, tried to play the JPSS funding as a win, noting that it is an increase above current levels.

"Without this increase, we could face a situation in a few years whereby our ability to accurately forecast severe weather could be substantially degraded," Wolf said. "This bill includes the necessary funds to avoid that unacceptable situation."

The increase for JPSS in 2012 may not be enough to lessen the impact of the program's 2011 budget shortfall, however.

NOAA says it has enough money to launch the first JPSS satellite in October -- but it is likely the second JPSS probe won't reach orbit before its predecessor stops functioning.

Agency officials have repeatedly warned the result would be a gap in crucial weather and climate data. Officials have said that if they receive the full $1.070 billion they requested for JPSS in 2012, they would likely be able to prevent further delays to the satellite launch schedule.

Schedule: The markup is Wednesday, July 13, at 10 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.

Reporter Lauren Morello contributed.