The NASA budget crisis appears to have stalled a bill in the House designed to boost the industry. The Space Access Improvement Act, introduced on July 16 in the House Science Committee by Rep. Robert Cramer, D-Ala., outlines a series of cost-saving suggestions to NASA, but it does not contain any funding for new programs. The bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on July 23, where it is currently on hold. Cramer will try to build support for his bill when Congress reconvenes, an aide said.
Another House bill, introduced on July 26 in the Science committee by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., stems from anxiety about slipping behind foreign competitors in the space market. The U.S. share of the world commercial market has decreased over the past twenty years from nearly 100 percent to approximately 47 percent in 1998, according to a Congressional report.
In response, Rohrabacher's Commercial Space Transportation Competitiveness Act authorizes funding for federal offices that deal with commercializing the industry, and extends the space launch indemnification law, which was set to expire this year. Indemnification provides government protection to payloads beyond their insurance limits. On July 29, the bill was referred to the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee, where it was marked-up and forwarded back to the full committee.
The Senate also appears eager to commercialize the space launch industry with bills of its own. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and presidential candidate, is also backing indemnification. McCain, who has ardently pushed for cost-sharing with the private sector in space exploration, introduced a Senate bill in late April to extend indemnification provisions for ten years. Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., has negotiated with McCain to lower that extension to four years. On August 4, a report for the bill was filed without amendment.
Also in the Senate, Sen. John Breaux, D-La., announced a bill in February-the Commercial Space Transportation Cost Reduction Act-intended to speed up the process of developing space launches, and to drive down their costs. The bill proposes a "loan guarantee program" to lend, as opposed to give, money to private launching companies. The Secretary of Transportation would oversee the lending program. The bill was referred in February to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
In addition to calling on the private sector, Congress appears willing to shift control of space launches into state government hands, and states such as Oklahoma and Idaho, who have recently approved their own spaceports, appear eager to take on the task.
Reps. Weldon, R-Fla., and Jim Davis, D-Fla., are pushing for state control, in no small part because Florida has one of the most active spaceport authorities in the country. They have introduced a House bill that allows municipalities to issue federal bonds to spaceports free from taxation, just as they can for airports now.
"A lot of states these days are saying 'why can't we have a spaceports?'," said Brendan Curry, Weldon's legislative assistant. "[The bill] is taking something that we do for airports and using it for spaceports."
The bill, called the Spaceport Investment Act, amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to put spaceports under the list of facilities that can receive tax-exempt bonds. The bill was referred to the Ways and Means committee on June 18, and no hearings are scheduled to discuss it.
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