Edwards Amendment to H.R. 2262, the SPACE Act
May 21, 2015
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I am offering this substitute amendment because I think we have a unique opportunity this week to pass bipartisan commercial space legislation that actually stands a chance of becoming law. That is what we need to focus on this morning.
The choice before us is really quite straightforward. We can spend the morning, as we have, fighting over the provisions of H.R. 2262, several of which were opposed by all of the Democratic members of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee when its provisions were marked up just last week. And when we are done, Members can vote, largely on party lines, to pass the bill.
But to what end, Mr. Chairman?
The Senate has already made it clear that H.R. 2262 has the proverbial snowball’s chance of being adopted by the Senate.
Pursuing House legislation, House passage of a bill that is going nowhere in the Senate seems to me to be the ultimate exercise in futility, and one that does a real disservice to the commercial space launch industry that all of us are trying to help succeed. But we don’t have to go down that path.
My amendment would replace the underlying text of H.R. 2262 with provisions of the bipartisan Senate commercial space bill, the one that was marked up in committee just yesterday.
Let me repeat that. The language in the substitute amendment, in my amendment, already has garnered bipartisan support in the Senate. It is language that is cosponsored by Senators Ted Cruz, Bill Nelson, Cory Gardner, and Gary Peters, which is not something you can say about many other bills that we consider in the House.
Now, the Senate bill doesn’t have everything I would like to see in a commercial space bill. I am sure that is the same for my Republican colleagues and for some in the industry. That is actually how legislation is made.
However, it has a core set of provisions that I think we and the industry can support, and that is what good compromises are all about.
The amendment addresses key issues facing the industry. It extends the “learning period” for another 5 years. It extends third-party liability and indemnification of the entire regime for another 4 years.
It provides commercial space launch licensing and experimental permit flexibility. It provides a NASA-sought definition of “Government Astronaut” and provides a path for streamlining commercial space launch activities.
The Senate provisions also provide for a review of issues related to commercial activities in space, as well as matters related to space situational awareness data.
They provide encouragement for the FAA and the industry to work together to facilitate the development of voluntary consensus standards, and they also ensure the International Space Station can remain a viable and productive facility through 2024.
Mr. Chairman, that is what my amendment does. It doesn’t give the commercial space industry anything or everything that some in the industry might want.
But I would remind colleagues that the Senate bill has been endorsed by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, the National Space Society, Students for Exploration and Development of Space, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, among others. That is the Senate bill. That is the substitute that is being offered.
So Members today can feel perfectly comfortable that my amendment is one that the commercial space industry believes meets its legitimate needs.
Mr. Chairman, as I said in the beginning of my remarks, we have a clear choice today. We can maintain a counterproductive, partisan divide and hold out for provisions that won’t move this legislation even 1 inch closer to becoming law.
Or we can step back, take a deep breath, and embrace the bipartisan compromise that our colleagues in the Senate have worked out. They have handed us a golden opportunity to move past partisan posturing and actually deliver legislation that can meet the needs of the commercial space industry and be enacted into law.
Mr. Chairman, House Democrats support the provisions of my amendment. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate support the provisions of my amendment.
If my Republican colleagues here today in the House can join us in supporting this substitute amendment, the provisions in the amendment, we can pass bipartisan legislation that could be on its way to the President for enactment in a matter of weeks.
I can think of no better way to end this week, and I urge Members to vote “yes” on the amendment in the nature of a substitute.
I reserve the balance of my time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Chairman, as I have said before, we have offered my amendment in the nature of a substitute because we are interested not just in making speeches here on the House floor, but we are interested in passing law and good policy that will be signed by the President, that will set the commercial space industry onto a pathway of continued innovation and success.
As has been described, the Senate yesterday, out of committee, marked up a bill that is bipartisan in nature. And because of the negotiations, there are not going to be any changes.
We want to make law for the industry, and we believe that this amendment in the nature of a substitute is good policy. I urge a “yes” vote on the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
H.R. 2262, the SPACE Act passed the House by a vote 284-133 on May 21st, 2015. Congresswoman Edwards' Amendment failed by a vote of 173 - 236.
