Political Quotes

“I want to begin by thanking Members for their bipartisan support of this legislation. H.R. 6586 is a very simple bill. It extends for 2 years a commercial space transportation risk-sharing and liability regime that was established by Congress in 1988 with passage and enactment of the Commercial Space Launch Act Amendments. The structure of the liability regime is modeled on the Price-Anderson Act that governs risk-sharing for the nuclear power industry. There are several features of the Commercial Space Launch Act Amendments, but one that is central to today's debate is indemnifying commercial launch and reentry operators against catastrophic losses suffered by the uninvolved public, or ``third parties.'' Since 1988, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation has licensed more than 200 commercial space launches and three reentries without any claims for Federal coverage for loss of life, serious injury, or significant property claims. The 1988 Act was driven in part by the emergence of foreign launch services companies that were made competitive through government subsidies and preferential foreign national laws, including indemnification. Foreign launch companies continue to be formidable competitors. If this program were allowed to lapse, it would threaten our domestic market for launches, as the cost of insurance would significantly increase.…”