Date: 2015-11-16
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. nothing excites me more than to discuss and to have witnessed much of the space exploration research. The bill we are considering today is a missed opportunity to enact sensible policies. It is a bill that. if enacted. will do harm to American taxpayers. to the longterm interests of the commercial space industry itself. It is a bill that displays the inconsistent and contradictory approach that this Congress has taken toward this industry. On the one hand. Congress and the industry has been saying that the commercial launch industry is so mature that we are ready to send our NASA astronauts on the International Space Station as passengers on commercial spacecraft. On the other hand. the bill before us today says that the industry is still so immature that the FAA shouldnt be allowed to impose any safety regulations to protect passengers who fly on any of the commercial spacecraft until well into the next decade. this. despite the fact that our country has more than a half century of experience in human spaceflight. and we understand very well what is needed to maintain passenger safety. This contradictory posture makes no sense to me. NASA will insist on the insight and oversight necessary to be convinced that the vehicles its astronauts fly on will be as safe as they can be. However. with this bill. ordinary citizens who fly on commercial spacecraft wont have any similar protections. I must point out that I am not talking in the abstraction. In just this past 13 months. we have witnessed three different commercial launch providers experience catastrophic failures. One of those failures resulted in the death of a test pilot. Another caused millions of dollars of damage to the launch facility. With these major accidents as a backdrop. I think it is unconscionable that we are here today moving this bill in its current form. The bill before us also goes against the interests of the American taxpayer. By extending the current licensing and indemnification regime without any updating of its provisions. it shifts more and more of the thirdparty liability financial risk in the event of an accident. and we know there will be accidents. from the companies to the taxpayers. Each year that the current. outdated indemnification regime is extended. the financial exposure of the taxpayer grows. and that of the companies are reduced. I can think of no other industry where we are willing to have the governmentand ultimately the American taxpayerassume an increasing share of the financial risk of an industry as it matures. Of course. some of my majority colleagues will argue that we have to provide that preferential treatment to our domestic commercial space transportation industry because foreign governments are providing it to theirs. Yet I would note that many of those same Members rejected that same argument when it was applied to the renewal of the ExIm Bank. I guess consistency is not always seen as a virtue in this party. Mr. Speaker. I will not belabor the point. I opposed this bill when an earlier version passed the House. Unfortunately. negotiations with the Senate did not result in any significant improvements. That is not to say there are no good provisions in the bill. There are. But they are outweighed by the provisions that in one way or another say that we as a Congress are concerned with protecting the interests of the commercial space transportation industry but not the safety of the Americans who will fly on their commercial spacecraft. Mr. Speaker. when the inevitable accident with significant loss of life occurs. whether it is 1 year from now or 5 years from now. the American public will look back at what we are doing today and ask how we could be so shortsighted. I would urge my colleagues to take a step back from this path that we are on so that we can take the time to craft legislation that will help this industry grow in a responsible manner while still protecting our citizens.