Aren’t these are the same congresscritter fools that allowed the evisceration of NASA and by association, the USA space program?
That they are. But not to worry, NASA has the funds now to make an engine almost as powerful as the current Russian one in use - it should be ready in a few years ... meanwhile, Russian is working on a new tech super heavy lift engine which will be ready in a few years at 150 tons to orbit, or many times more than the NASA engine ... the Congress Critters so hugely crippled the US effort that we will likely never recover, just save face, is all.
Private efforts at super heavy lift are no where near the Russian engine to come.