Team Trump has rolled out a space policy proposal that orients NASA toward space exploration and science and emphasizes private/public partnerships. However, all The Hill Newspaper got out of it is what it considers a threat to cut the Earth science account, or as it artfully calls it the “climate budget.” But the blame for such a development, should it happen in a Trump administration, would fall at the door of President Barack Obama and his obsession with climate change.

Congressional Republicans have been complaining that the Obama administration has been requesting hefty increases for Earth science while skimping for every other NASA account, including Space exploration and science research.

Since assuming the chair of the Senate Science and Space Subcommittee, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas has been leading the charge against what he sees as an “unbalanced” NASA, abandoning its traditional role of pushing back the high frontier of space and instead using satellites to study the Earth. NASA is involved in this kind of research along with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) because of its expertise in designing satellites with remote sensing technology.

The Trump campaign has suggested that climate change research will be shifted to other agencies, allowing NASA to refocus on a goal of exploring the solar system with humans by the end of the century. Democrats are pushing back, suggesting that Team Trump is “denying science” by neglecting climate change research.

However, a number of companies are beginning to get into the remote Earth sensing business on a commercial basis. Planetary Resources, a company that proposes to mine asteroids, is using some of its remote sensing technology to conduct the observation of water content, crop growth, oil and gas leaks and forest fires.

Customers would include farmers, oil and gas companies, and governments. Conceivably climate monitoring could be outsourced commercially.

The Obama administration could have avoided the controversy by being as equally generous with space exploration and science as it has with climate science. If Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic, becomes president, the pendulum is likely to swing the other way as a result of the president’s unbalanced budget priorities.