President Bush has threatened to veto a current effort by the Senate to give NASA an extra $1 billion, specifically to help the agency transition from its retiring space shuttle fleet to its replacement.

http://www.floridatoday.com/floridatoday/blogs/spaceteam/2007/11/live-nasa-testifying-about-shuttle.html

"The failure to plan for a successor to the space shuttle and to bring it online in a timely way was a failure of U.S. strategic planning," he said. "We are not in the position that I would wish the United States to be in."

Nelson also questioned Griffin on NASA's reliance on Russia to help Americans carry cargo to the International Space Shuttle once the shuttle fleet is retired. He said he feared Russia's current icy relationship with the United States would hurt the space program's future.

"At the same time we're laying off maybe 5,000 people at the Kennedy Space Center, we're going to pay for Russian vehicles that we don't even know will be available to us," Nelson said. "That doesn't sound to be like a good backup plan."
Griffin agreed.

"I don't like it. I consider it to be unseemly in the extreme and unwise strategically for the United States to be dependent on any other nation," he said.

"I'm doing the best I can to chart our course out of it. I did not put us into this position, I'm doing the best I can to get out of it but if you think I like it, you would be wrong."