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President Obama intends to meet with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday, a White House official told FoxNews.com, after criticism mounted over reports the president wouldn’t be able to meet her while she is in Washington this week.

Brewer had requested a face-to-face meeting with Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, as tensions rise between his administration and the Grand Canyon State over its controversial law clamping down on illegal immigrants.

The White House denies that Obama snubbed Brewer, saying there initially were some scheduling issues this week that have been resolved.

“This Administration has dedicated unprecedented resources over the past 16 months to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility to secure the Southwest Border,” a White House official told Fox News. “The President looks forward to discussing those efforts and other matters of mutual interest with Gov. Brewer.”

Obama continues to push for a multi-layered approach to immigration. Brewer’s arrival will put the president face-to-face with the most visible exponent secure-the-border-first immigration policy.

The meeting comes after Justice Department officials told Arizona’s attorney general and aides to the governor Friday that the federal government has serious reservations about the state’s new immigration law.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican who helped draft Arizona’s SB 1070, had called Obama’s decision not to meet with Brewer “an insult.”

“He’s willing to have a beerfest with an officer in Cambridge after he misspoke,” Pearce told Fox News on Tuesday, referring to a photo-op the president held last summer after he incited a feud over the bias of a police officer who arrested a black professor at the front door to his home.

“He misspoke on this bill also and he’s not willing to meet with the governor of the state of Arizona?” Pearce said.

Obama has blasted Arizona’s immigration law, which takes effect July 29, as “misguided” and warned that it could violate civil rights and lead to racial profiling.

The White House has indicated that it’s prepared to go to court if necessary in a bid to block the new law, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

WASHINGTON, – U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to tamp down an uprising in politically vital Florida against a new strategy for NASA that has rankled space veterans and lawmakers and sparked fears of job losses.

Obama’s decision to kill NASA’s Constellation program to launch astronauts into orbit and return Americans to the moon has prompted soul-searching on whether the United States is prepared to cede a pre-eminent space role to Russia and China.

“As with all great human achievements, our commitment to space must be renewed and encouraged or we will surely be surpassed by other nations who are presently challenging our leadership in space,” Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. Congress from Florida wrote to Obama last week.

Obama’s move for a greater private sector role in space launches — as he seeks to keep ballooning federal deficits in check — has generated fears of job losses among thousands of NASA employees who provide an important economic base in Florida, a state usually crucial in presidential elections.

Employees at major space complexes in Alabama and Texas are also worried.

It is making for a potentially explosive environment when Obama travels to the Cape Canaveral area on April 15 to host a space conference with top officials and leaders in the field.

“What reception will they get? Not good,” said Keith Cowing, editor of nasawatch.com, a website that closely monitors the U.S. space agency. “It’s a gutsy move. It’s Daniel in the Lion’s Den.”

Obama, in his Feb. 1 budget proposal, planned to increase NASA’s overall funding to $19 billion in 2011 with an emphasis on science and less spent on space exploration.

He would cancel the Constellation program’s Orion spacecraft and Ares rockets, after $9 billion and five years of tests. Constellation is aimed at returning astronauts to the moon in the 2020s to clear the way for a Mars mission.

Instead, Obama would spend $6 billion a year for five years to support commercial spacecraft development and pursue new technologies to explore the solar system in what the White House called “a more effective and affordable way.”

LARGER ISSUE

Various members of the far-flung U.S. space community have been troubled by the change, such as former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, who struggled to get more funding for Constellation from the previous administration of President George W. Bush and believes Obama should stick with it.

“There’s a larger issue here,” Griffin said. “Does the United States want to have a real space program? Do we actually think we can have a robust, exciting, world-leading space program by hiring private enterprise to furnish it?”

But John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said he believed it was time for the private sector to get more involved in space.

“There’s no reason to think that the technical talent in the private sector, combined with a significant degree of NASA engagement, cannot come up with a good solution,” he said.

The debate to some extent has riven the space community. Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, supports the change in direction while Harrison Schmitt, one of the last on the lunar surface, opposes it.

NASA already has contracts with Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences Corp (ORB.N) to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. SpaceX and other firms are developing spaceships that can carry passengers to orbit and back.

The shuttle system still has four more flights to get crews and hardware to the International Space Station before the craft are retired. After that, NASA will be without a heavy-lift capability for a period of time.

This means Americans would have to pay to ride on Russian rockets to get into orbit, a stark turn of events after the pivotal battle the United States and the Soviet Union fought to outdo each other in the space race.

To maintain a lift capability, Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson wants the administration to add one shuttle flight and develop the Ares rockets that are part of the Constellation program.

Ultimately, Nelson believes Obama needs to give the United States a goal for its space program and hopes it will be a mission to Mars. (Additional reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

Major General Robert A Harding was nominated March 8 by the Obama Administration to become administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the arm of the Department of Homeland Security that oversees security for all transportation modes.

The nomination came after weeks of speculation over who the White House would name to the long-vacant post of TSA administrator. Harding served 33 years in the US Army and at one point was the Defense Department’s senior human intelligence officer.

Harding seems to be a good choice for the position, according to John Conley, president of National Tank Truck Carriers. “Harding has proven leadership ability, and his intelligence background will be an important asset,” he says. “All in all, Harding seems very qualified, and we need to move forward and get someone in place as the TSA administrator.”

The position of TSA administrator has been vacant since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. The Obama Administration’s first nominee—Erroll Southers—withdrew from consideration on January 20, just days before he was expected to be confirmed as TSA administrator by the Senate. Southers was under criticism for ordering criminal background checks on the boyfriend of his estranged wife. He was censured by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for that action