[HillRat]

It's a first salvo. Coffman and Brooks both serve on HASC and on the HASC Oversight and Investigations subcommittee; Brooks is vice-chair of the House science committee's Space and Aeronautics subcommittee. Whatever NASA provides is going to be grist for investigations into SpaceX and possibly legislation crippling it (and potentially other small competitors) in favor of the big aerospace employers in the reps' districts.

In particular, this is probably an attempt to force NASA into selecting Boeing's CST-100 as the agency's new orbital vehicle. Boeing's option certainly has fewer operational "anomalies" than SpaceX's Dragon, because it hasn't even made it to orbit yet -- but don't expect politically-motivated Congressmen to admit that Boeing is a higher risk than a proven, if upstart, solution.