Policy Update (19 May 2026)

The Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) House Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill and the accompanying report were released on 29 April and 12 May, respectively, ahead of the House Appropriations Committee markup on 13 May. The House Appropriations Committee recommends roughly 20% cuts to NASA Science and the National Science Foundation (NSF). You can read more details regarding the astronomical sciences in our recent blog post.

On 11 May, the AAS submitted a comment on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff, which considers telemetry, tracking and command spectrum access for emergent space operations. The AAS urges “careful consideration of the full range of potential impacts on existing spectrum users, particularly passive scientific services. Clear, proactive safeguards will be necessary to ensure that increased flexibility in spectrum use does not come at the expense of critical scientific and safety-related applications.”

On 12 May, the AAS and the American Geophysical Union policy staff helped the Heliophysics Coalition with their day of Hill visits, where more than 50 members of the solar and space physics community met with their congressional offices to advocate for robust support for NASA Science, its Heliophysics Division, NSF, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in FY27.

For more science and space policy news, check out these resources:

• What’s Ahead: The Week of May 11, 2026 (AIP FYI)
• What’s Happening in Space Policy May 17–23, 2026 (SpacePolicyOnline)

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected]. For a chronological list of recent AAS actions and public policy updates, check out our Public Policy Updates page.