The NASA Inspector-General has written to the US Congress to flag wasteful agency spending caused by language in the continuing resolution (CR) legislation that is currently funding the US government.

The CR mandates agencies to continue funding existing programs at last year’s level until Congress can pass a new budget. For NASA, that means continuing to fund Constellation, the George W. Bush program to return to the Moon and onwards to Mars, to the tune of $200 million per month, until March 4th, 2011, even though the NASA authorization Act of 2010, signed by Barack Obama in October, canceled the program.

Congress has known about this issue for over a month; it was pointed out in the question and answer session on testimony by NASA’s Chief Financial Officer, Elizabeth Robinson (pictured), to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, on December 1st, 2010. But in the rush to pass the CR before Congress broke for the holidays no one took up the issue.

The NASA IG Paul Martin says that if Congress doesn’t act soon to pass corrective legislation, NASA may end up spending as much as $575 million on the cancelled program. “It will become increasingly more difficult for the agency to continue to juggle the inconsistent mandates of the authorization act and the appropriations legislation so as to avoid wasting taxpayer funds,” says the IG, “we urge Congress to take immediate action that will enable NASA to reduce or cease funding aspects of the Constellation program.”