The cuts to NASA’s fiscal year 2005 budget request contained in the House Appropriations Committee’s NASA spending bill effectively would halt the agency’s plans to develop a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and achieve new breakthroughs in in-space propulsion, according to Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “We can’t do this at the levels that they’ve contemplated,” O’Keefe told Senate lawmakers at a Sept. 8, 2004 hearing.