The Senate Appropriations Committee is set to vote this week on a measure that would set spending levels next year for federal climate and weather monitoring satellites, fisheries enforcement and controversial catch-share fishery management schemes.

The fiscal 2012 spending measure for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is set for a subcommittee markup today. The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the appropriations bill tomorrow, along with two other spending measures.

The measure -- which includes funding levels for the Commerce Department, Justice Department and other science agencies -- could have significant effects on future weather and climate forecasting.

While the Obama administration proposed cuts to overall funding levels at the Commerce Department, the White House 2012 budget requested more than $1 billion for new climate and weather monitoring satellites at NOAA. The administration wants a significant bump-up for the account in order to launch new satellites for the Joint Polar Satellite System.

Administration officials have repeatedly said the funding is needed to avoid disruptions in the agency's ability to predict changes in weather and climate. Without the funding, satellites launches would be delayed and the government would lose some of its ability to provide advance warning for severe weather events, like the hurricanes and tropical storms that have doused the East Coast this fall, according to NOAA.

At a conference in July, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said the satellite funding should be a "no-brainer, but it kind of fell off the edge of the table." Lack of funding for the project is a "major frustration," she said, because lawmakers have tended to "focus only on numbers without attention to the consequences" (ClimateWire, July 20).

The House Commerce-Justice-Science spending bill includes $901 million for JPSS, roughly $170 million less than the administration had sought. The proposed cut would mark the second year in which the satellite received less than the White House request. In 2011, lawmakers awarded JPSS just $382 million, a fraction of the $910 million NOAA requested.

Agency officials have said they have enough money to launch the first JPSS satellite in October, but the 2011 budget shortfall means they will have to delay launching the second JPSS probe by at least 18 months.

The Senate panel could potentially be more generous to the agency. Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said at a hearing earlier this summer that she wants to make sure to keep satellite funding "on track" for 2012.

But Mikulski said she also wants to make sure there is not a "fiscal boondoggle." The administration formed the JPSS program out of the scraps of a defunct prior effort on satellites between NOAA and the Air Force.

Also at issue will be funding for new fishery management systems called "catch shares." NOAA has requested additional money to help launch the systems, but lawmakers included a rider in their 2011 spending bill that barred fishing counsels from taking final action to approve new catch-share efforts.

NOAA requested $36 million for catch shares in fiscal 2012. Much of that would go toward development of the new programs, paying to analyze management options and design options, according to the agency. Some funding would also go for fisheries observers, enforcement and scientific work.

The new management efforts are aimed at setting catch quotas that the administration says will give fishermen ownership of a portion of an overall catch.

They are controversial because they turn traditional fisheries management upside down. Instead of limiting the fishing season or the number of days that boats are allowed at sea, regulators impose an overall catch limit and divide the total share among buyers. Some fishing communities have embraced the new system, but other fishing groups in the Northeast and California have sued to try to halt the new management schemes (E&ENews PM, May 10, 2010).

Schedule: The subcommittee markup is today, Sept. 14, at 2:30 p.m. in Dirksen 192. The full committee markup is tomorrow, Sept. 15, at 2 p.m. in Hart 216.