GAO’s Report on the Status of NOAA’s Geostationary Weather Satellite Program
Opening Statement By Chairman Nick Lampson
Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment meets today for a report on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES, program. These satellites, which have been serving America since 1975, watch over the whole Western Hemisphere from their positions 22,300 miles above Earth. They send back the pictures that your local weather reporter shows you every night. GOES satellites provide the dramatic pictures of hurricanes that we all see when these storms are churning toward the coast. They enable forecasters to alert us that severe weather is on the way. It's the weather satellite no one wants to be without, especially those of us who represent coastal areas.
Designing and flying satellites is a difficult business, and even with years of experience there are always frustrations in bringing new ones into service. In the early 1990s, the General Accounting Office told Congress that the generation of GOES satellites then in development was in serious trouble. The instruments were behind schedule, the program cost had more than doubled, and it still was not clear when the satellites would be launched. At least today we are not in the position of having the last GOES satellite in orbit with its fuel tanks almost empty.
Last year, NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher told us that the GOES program cost estimates had almost doubled, and in order to bring them back within the agency's limited budget he was cutting the number of satellites in half and eliminating one of the major instruments. An independent review team took issue with NOAA's intent to manage the GOES program by itself, questioning whether there were enough people in the agency who know how to handle satellite design and development. The Earth Science Decadal Survey issued earlier this year by the National Research Council urged NOAA to find a way to recover the capability represented by the eliminated sensor. Our GAO team recommended a full-scale review of the Advanced Baseline Imager (the primary sensor) and bolstering the agency's management capability.
NOAA has been responding to all this advice, as Ms. Kicza will explain in her testimony. The agency decided that it did have to ask NASA for help and has given its sister agency the responsibility to manage those elements of the GOES program that will fly in space. It will apply its own special expertise to the ground side of the program. It has brought over NASA staff to supplement its own program and project managers. It completed the review of the Advanced Baseline Imager. Today, it is at the point where the decision has to be made to buy GOES-R. That makes it a good time to see where we are.
Mr. Powner from GAO has some important messages to bring out in his statement. It appears that the program cost estimate will be around $8 billion by the time we receive the President's budget request this year. This is some $1 billion more than the estimate Admiral Lautenbacher gave us last year. That is not a good trend. It concerns me to find out that we are operating with both an acting Program Director and an acting Deputy Program Director - and that NOAA's first attempt to fill the Deputy's slot couldn't find someone for the job. There appears to be strong disagreement between our witnesses about the relationship between NASA and NOAA in terms of managing the space segment of the GOES program. I trust Ms. Kicza to discuss that with us.
The Chair of NOAA's Independent Review Team, Tom Young, knows from his own experience - and many reviews of what went wrong in other satellite programs - where to look to figure out how well a project like GOES is progressing. He has told us that the opportunity to get GOES right is there. I hope today's hearing will keep GOES moving in the right direction.
Thank you, and I recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Inglis, for his opening remarks.
Witnesses
Panel
1 - Mr. David Powner
Director Information Technology Management Issues Government Accountability Office Information Technology Management Issues Government Accountability Office
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2 - Ms. Mary Ellen Kicza
Assistant Administrator for Satellite and Information Services National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
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