The Senate’s failure to pass the temporary extension to satellite TV legislation (H.R. 4691) last week could mean that 2 million satellite TV subscribers will lose access to broadcast network television programming according to Congress Daily (subscription required). It also has significant ramifications in other sectors of the economy.

Transportation Secretary LaHood said that 2,000 federal workers will have to be furloughed immediately because surface transportation programs were not extended, along with implications for Medicare payments to physicians, COBRA insurance benefits, etc. Senate Jim Bunning (R-TX) is refusing to agree to a unanimous request to pass the bill because it does not pay for itself.

On the satellite TV front, Congress Daily reported that the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees — which have jurisdiction over this aspect of the satellite TV legislation — sent a letter to DirecTV and other satellite TV providers asking them to continue providing service to those subscribers while Congress tries to solve the problem.

SkyReport, a daily newsletter about the commercial satellite business, bitterly asked “is there anyone, anywhere who has any respect left for the U.S. Congress?…This isn’t brain surgery. Or health care legislation. Or even a particularly tough crossword puzzle. This is basic, BASIC stuff and they can’t get it passed.”

Burt Rutan, the highly respected, outspoken aerospace engineer who designed SpaceShipOne and other innovative aerospace vehicles, wrote a letter to Congressman Frank Wolf (posted on the Congressman’s website) widely interpreted as being critical of President Obama’s decision to terminate the Constellation program and instead rely on commercial companies to send NASA astronauts to low Earth orbit. Concerned about how the letter is being characterized in the press, Mr. Rutan wrote some clarifying comments that are posted on Rob Coppinger’s Hyperbola blog.

It appears that Mr. Rutan wants to avoid upsetting those who advocate commercial crew while at the same time warning against America abandoning its leadership in human space flight by taking NASA out of the picture. His emphasis in both missives is that NASA should focus on research leading to technical breakthroughs (which suggests that he should support the President’s proposal), but that the United States needs to remain in the forefront of human space exploration (which it might not under the President’s proposal). Mr. Rutan’s stature in the aerospace community gives his voice considerable weight, particularly for those advocating commercial space activities. His letter to Congressman Wolf received a lot of attention precisely because it was viewed as supporting a government-run program over a commercial program.

Today the House passed H.R. 4691, which includes a one-month extension of the satellite home viewer act along with temporary extensions of several other laws that otherwise will expire on Sunday, February 28. The House passed a new version of the satellite television law last year, but the Senate did not. They agreed on an extension to February 28, but the Senate still has not acted on the legislation. Whether the Senate will agree to the new temporary extension is up in the air. Congress Daily (subscription required) reported late Thursday evening that as the clock ticked down, Senator Bunning (R-KY) was objecting to a unanimous consent agreement to pass the bill.

The Senate adjourned today without passing the bill (H.R. 4691) that would have extended for one more month a number of laws that will expire on Sunday, including satellite television legislation. The satellite TV law contains copyright provisions that allow satellite TV companies (Dish Network and DirecTV) to offer certain TV programming to their subscribers under a government-set copyright fee. Other expiring laws bundled together in H.R. 4691 affect unemployment insurance, COBRA benefits, surface transportation programs, medicare payments, flood insurance, and small business loan guarantees.

The House passed H.R. 4691 yesterday, but in the Senate, Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) objected to a unanimous consent request to pass the bill because it does not pay for itself. In comments on the Senate floor, Senator Bunning remarked that every member of the Senate agreed with the contents of the bill, but he could not let it pass without including offsets to pay for it.

The Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act (SHVERA) would have expired on December 31, 2009, but Congress passed a 2-month extension when House and Senate committees could not reach agreement on a new bill. The original satellite TV law, enacted in 1988, granted a 5-year compulsory copyright license to facilitate the emergence of the then-nascent satellite TV business. It made it easier and less expensive for satellite TV companies to obtain copyrighted television programming to transmit to their subscribers. The legislation has been renewed at 5-year intervals ever since and also involves telecommunications law provisions that are largely intended to protect the nation-wide local affiliates of the major television networks from losing their markets to satellite TV-providers. Thus the law is under the jurisdiction of both the House and Senate Commerce Committees and the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. According to Multichannel News, all four committees are now in agreement on a new version of the law, renamed the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act — STELA, but it has not been brought to the floor of either chamber for a vote, hence the need for an extension of the current law.

What will happen at 12:01 Monday morning when copyright owners are not required to provide their programs to the satellite TV companies under the terms set by SHVERA will be interesting to watch. The Senate will be in session on Monday, but no votes are set until Tuesday. Thus, if Senator Bunning continues to object to the unanimous consent request, nothing can be done to resolve the issue until Tuesday unless Senate Majority Leader Reid brings the Senate back into session this weekend or schedules a vote on Monday.

According to reports on the Internet, Twitter, and a press release from the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver today committed the agency to spending $75 million over 5 years for the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program.

The money reportedly would be allocated to science and education payloads to fly on suborbital launch vehicles being developed by several companies. NASA does not seem to have sent out a press release confirming the commitment yet, although NASA’s Ames Research Center issued one earlier today saying that Ms. Garver would be making a keynote address at the Next Generation Suborbital Research conference taking place in Boulder, CO. Her speech is not yet posted on NASA’s website.

In another announcement related to promoting commercial space, NASA said it would honor the winners of the 2009 Centennial Challenges competitions next week. A technical seminar in Washington, DC on February 25 will be followed by a ceremony on February 26 recognizing the winners of the prizes for the Regolith Excavation, Lunar Lander, Power Beaming, and Astronaut Glove competitions.

NASA awarded five small contracts today to companies vying a piece of the commercial crew pie. The funding, $50 million, is part of the $1 billion NASA received in the stimulus package, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The five contracts, awarded as Space Act Agreements, went to:

• Blue Origin, $3.7 million
• The Boeing Company, $18 million
• Paragon Space Development Corporation, $1.4 million
• Sierra Nevada Corporation, $20 million
• United Launch Alliance, $6.7 million

NASA’s press release said that the agreements are for developing “crew concepts and technology demonstrations for future commercial support of human spaceflight.” As evidenced in NASA’s FY2011 budget, the agency has decided that commercial human space flight is the best path forward instead of the Constellation program. Congress will have to decide if it agrees.

Export control reform moved another step forward yesterday. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Undersecretary of State (and former Congresswoman) Ellen Tauscher, and National Security Adviser Jim Jones met with members of the House and Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees to brief them on the President’s “ambitious plans to dramatically reform our nation’s outdated export control system,” according to Department of Defense (DOD) spokesman Geoff Morrell at a DOD press briefing.

Mr. Morrell added that Mr. Gates is committed to working with other agencies and with Congress to “make meaningful and lasting changes” because he believes it is “imperative to keep our nation competitive in this global economy, as well as to keep our friends and allies equipped well enough to contribute in a meaningful way to global security.”

A review of the U.S. export control regime ordered by President Obama is due tomorrow.

In response to a question about whether Mr. Gates supports changes that could specifically help the satellite industry, Mr. Morrell said he did not have that level of detail but Mr. Gates believes that —

“…what is required here is not, you know, tinkering around the edges of what is a rather cumbersome, antiquated, outdated, bureaucratic set of rules and regulations governing the export of technology.

“He believes you need to conduct a wholesale reform of export controls, really starting with a blank sheet of paper. And, you know, this is not his initiative. This is an initiative that the president has proposed, it’s being led, I think, by the Department of Commerce, but one that he fully supports and is willing to go to bat for.”

The review of U.S. export control policies ordered by President Obama in August recently was given a deadline of January 29 according to Space News. The newspaper reports that the President signed Presidential Study Directive (PSD)-8 on December 21 setting that deadline and stating that the review would be used to prepare “comprehensive” statutory and regulatory recommendations “to create a new U.S. export control system.”

Matthew Borman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration at the Commerce Department made no mention of an upcoming deadline when he testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) last month. His formal testimony referenced only the August announcement and said the review was “well underway” and would “devise an export control system to best address diffuse threats, technology and markets of the 21st century.”

The U.S. export control regime splits responsibility between the Commerce Department for “dual-use” technologies that have both military and commercial applications, and the State Department for technologies that might pose a national security threat if they got into the wrong hands. Those technologies are placed on the State Department’s “Munitions List” and handled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Critics argue that many technologies, including commercial communications satellites, should be on the Commerce Department’s “Commerce Control List’ and not the Munitions List, and that the United States is only hurting itself by the way it currently implements ITAR. University professors have been especially vocal on the chilling effect on ITAR on science and engineering education because of restrictions on what professors can teach to foreign students. Space scientists have been critical of ITAR’s effect on internationally cooperative space science missions; a 2008 report by the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board discussed those concerns.

HFAC held a second hearing on export controls last week at Stanford University. The President of Stanford, John Hennessy, was one of the witnesses. He co-chaired a much broader NRC report on the need for export control reform that was released last year. That report recommended an initial focus on changes that could be accomplished by the President without the need for Congress to pass legislation. The President’s decision in favor of a comprehensive approach that would require both executive and congressional action is likely to significantly extend the time needed to accomplish change. Congress has a lot on its plate already and in an election year like 2010 issues that more directly affect voters, such as jobs, typically would be the focus of attention.

A coalition of industry groups, including several representing the aerospace industry, sent a letter and list of recommendations to President Obama yesterday to press their case for export control reform. The Coalition for Security and Competitiveness (CSC) said that the recommendations build on a set of principles it sent the President in October and represent “near and medium-term reforms to create a modern export control system within the existing legislative authorizations.”

The recommendations revolve around five themes:

• Draw clear lines of agency responsibility
• Revise and reduce control lists
• Complete the transition to an end user-based system
• Enhance cooperation with allies, and
• Enhance cooperation with the business community

Among the aerospace industry groups represented in the CSC are the Aerospace Industries Association, the Satellite Industry Association, the Space Enterprise Council, and the Space Foundation.

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein’s article on Friday raises interesting issues about the state of the aerospace industry in the wake of Northrop Grumman’s decision to move from California to the Washington, D.C. neighborhood. “Northrop’s decampment completes the retreat of the aerospace industry’s top echelon from Southern California, where it all began” he remarks, later adding:

“While all this is great for the Washington economy, I wonder, however, whether it’s really good for America. What made the American aerospace and defense industry the best in the world was its knack for taking risks, thinking big and delivering a steady stream of innovative gee-whiz products. But if you talk to people who have been around the industry for a while, you get the sense that too much of that innovative edge has been lost.”

It’s an interesting read not only for the issues he raises, but also for the trip down memory lane. “Northrop”, “Boeing,” and “Lockheed” are just names of corporations these days. Pearlstein reminds us of the men — Jack Northrop, Bill Boeing, and Allan Lockheed — who created the companies and how the industry as a whole has changed over the years.