WASHINGTON (States News Service) -- As Congress wraps up legislative business for the century, space-related bills are being held up by political bargaining tactics.
With the president and Congress now on the tail end of prolonged budget negotiations, time is running out for bills that extend launch indemnification and offer federally backed loans to commercial launch companies.
These two bills have been delayed for months because senators have blocked their consideration.
Because the Senate often votes by unanimous consent to move quickly through legislation, senators can block a vote either by withholding their consent, or tacking on unrelated and often controversial amendments to advance their own agenda.
"Senators are holding things up for unrelated [to space] reasons," said House Science committee spokesman Jeff Lungren. "One senator can tie things up and they move on to other business."
Sens. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and now Herb Kohl, D-Wis., have prevented a vote on a Senate plan to extend by five years indemnification for commercial launch companies. Indemnification ensures the government will cover any potential damage costs to a third-party from a malfunctioning launch vehicle.
"It is pending for action on unanimous consent, but Senator Kohl has held up all [such] agreements," said Senate Commerce committee spokeswoman Pia Pialorsi.
Kohl forced the hold until a contentious dairy compact is resolved.
The existing indemnification law, aimed at encouraging firms to develop launch capabilities and get insurance, was initially set to expire on Dec. 31, 1999.
But lawmakers managed to put off dealing with the renewal in October by slipping a one-year extension of the indemnification into the VA-HUD spending bill, which the president signed.
"This gives us a little bit of breathing room," Lungren said. "[But] pretty much everyone would like to get this done as soon as possible," he said.
Lawmakers who care about the bill, including its sponsor, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will want to move quickly on it when Congress reconvenes, Lungren predicts.
Another pending measure, which would speed up the application process for export licenses for commercial satellites, has stalled over controversial provisions about abortion and family planning which were latched on to the bill.
A House-Senate conference to work out the satellite provision, part of a State Department spending bill, is hung up on the abortion issues, Lungren said. The export control issue is a primary concern of satellite makers and users.
Another plan left hanging, a bill to offer federally backed loans to private space launch companies, had won broad support in Congress and industry earlier this fall. But this bill was not even actively blocked.
"This is just not one that, in light of everything going on with the budget and appropriations bills, got that far down the pipeline," a Senate aide familiar with the bill said.
Drafted by Sen. John Breaux, D-La., the plan would offer $500 million in loan guarantees to qualified launch companies, which could trigger as much as $5 billion in loans, according to Breaux.
A bill to bar NASA from transferring funds for Russias work on the International Space Station as long as the country continues giving weapons technology to Iran is also nowhere near the presidents desk.
Bills that are not passed by the time Congress goes home for the holidaysprobably later this monthwill have another year before they would expire.
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