Trump’s NASA Nominee, Jim Bridenstine, Confirmed by Senate on Party-Line Vote

Seven and a half months after being nominated to lead NASA, Jim Bridenstine finally gets to start his new job. His confirmation following a vote in the Senate ends the longest span of time that NASA has operated without a permanent leader, and comes with a vivid reminder that few posts in Washington are now spared from partisan conflict.

On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Mr. Bridenstine, an Oklahoma congressman, as the new NASA administrator in a stark partisan vote: 50 Republicans voting for him and 47 Democrats plus two independents against. The vote lasted more than 45 minutes as Republicans waited for Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona to cast his lot. The vote was also punctuated by the appearance of Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, who cast her “no” vote on the Senate floor with her newborn daughter in hand.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth's baby makes her big debut on the Senate floor.

Duckworth is the first sitting senator to give birth while in office, and the Senate unanimously passed a rule change to allow her to nurse her newborn on Senate floor. https://t.co/mQPhab19Jk pic.twitter.com/pDqc2GiiMh

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) April 19, 2018

Many who voted against him expressed concerns about his record of partisanship as well as some statements questioning climate change, an area of research in which the space agency plays a central role.

Mr. Bridenstine takes over an agency in transition. While President Obama talked of sending astronauts to Mars in a couple of decades, the Trump administration has instead focused on a nearer, quicker goal: to return to the moon. The administration has also proposed getting NASA out of the business of running the International Space Station and instead spur commercial alternatives that do not yet exist.

Critics have questioned whether the agency’s new administrator is up to the task.

Mr. Bridenstine, a former Navy pilot who is now in his third term in the House of Representatives, has become immersed in space issues. In 2016, he sponsored a bill called the American Space Renaissance Act, which proposed broad, ambitious goals for the nation’s space program, including directing NASA to devise a 20-year plan. Although it did not reach a vote, some of the ideas were incorporated into other legislation.