The House this week will consider legislation to provide $1.4 billion for NASA earth science to fund critical satellite missions, funding that merits approval, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) said.

That appropriation, contained in an omnibus funding bill, includes $150 million for new NASA earth science missions to measure ice sheets, climate and atmosphere to better predict environmental changes, Mikulski added. She chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee commerce, justice, science and related agencies subcommittee.

The measure also includes $606 million for NASA to explore how the sun affects the Earth to help predict and provide warnings about events that can knock out communications and power grids, such as solar flares.

Finally, there is $966 billion for NOAA weather satellites, which are important early warning tools to help save lives and money, with funding to restore critical climate sensors that were deleted from next generation polar satellites because of cost overruns.