Today the House passed the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act by voice vote with bipartisan support. The bill modernizes the existing regulatory system for commercial remote sensing satellites and designates the Department of Commerce as the agency responsible for regulating new “non-traditional” commercial space activities. Action now moves to the Senate.
Former Congressman Jim Bridenstine took the oath of office today becoming NASA’s 13th Administrator. Vice President Mike Pence presided over the ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC bringing greetings from President Trump, “a great champion … of the pioneering work of NASA” and who is committed to ensuring America remains preeminent in space.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 22-28, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Jim Bridenstine will be sworn into office as NASA Administrator on Monday, April 23, 2018. Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the White House National Space Council, will officiate. The ceremony will be webcast.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) was confirmed by the Senate this afternoon to be the next Administrator of NASA. The vote was along party lines: 50-49. Bridenstine is taking over the agency as Robert Lightfoot retires. A career NASA civil servant, Lightfoot has been serving as Acting Administrator since the Trump Administration began in January 2017.
The Senate narrowly voted to proceed with consideration of Rep. Jim Bridenstine’s (R-Oklahoma) nomination to be NASA Administrator this afternoon. The 50-48 vote came only after Arizona Republican Jeff Flake changed his vote from no to yes, resolving what had been a 49-49 tie. The cloture vote limits debate on the nomination itself to 30 hours once it begins. The Senate has not specified when that will happen. [Update: the Senate will continue consideration of the Bridenstine nomination tomorrow morning, with a vote scheduled at 1:45 pm ET.]
The House Science, Space, and Technology (SS&T) Committee approved a FY2018-2019 NASA authorization bill (H.R. 5503) on a 26-7 bipartisan vote today. Winning the support of committee Democrats involved last minute negotiations while the markup was underway that resulted in adoption of an amendment restoring $471 million in Earth science funding for FY2019. That brings the total authorized for NASA in FY2019 to $21.2 billion, which is $1.3 billion more than President Trump requested.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for April 16, 2018: new CSIS Space Threat Assessment report, an update on Europa Clipper, and the cause of the Long March 5 failure last year. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took a procedural step this afternoon to bring to a vote the nomination of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) to be the next NASA Administrator. NASA has been operating without a presidentially-appointed Senate-confirmed administrator since President Trump took office. Robert Lightfoot, the top civil servant at NASA, has been serving as Acting Administrator, but is retiring at the end of this month.
Vice President Mike Pence announced today that the National Space Council will soon present to the President a new policy on Space Traffic Management. The need to manage the growing congestion in Earth orbit has been discussed for years. Many expected the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would be assigned the task, but Pence revealed that it will be the Department of Commerce instead.