Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Space Frontier Act is a missed opportunity, despite months of negotiations. The House successfully added some positive provisions to the bill, including: Increased the stature of the Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce to a Bureau of Space Commerce, led by a Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Commerce; Reduced from 120 to 90 days a determination for remote sensing applications; Remote sensing applications cannot be denied if a product will be commercially available within 3 years; Enhanced deadline enforcement for remote sensing applications; Included a low-Earth orbit commercialization program authorized at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee's NASA reauthorization level of $150 million. This bill contains some improvements over current commercial space law, but many bold reforms in the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act, which passed the House unanimously, were not included in this package. We have not done enough to encourage commercial space activity, which has the potential to transform research, development, discovery, and access to space. While remote sensing reform is marginally improved over current law in the original version of the Space Frontier Act, it doesn't go far enough.…”