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Welcome to 2024, the yr by which a bitterly divided Congress will attempt to legislate as lawmakers additionally take time away to marketing campaign forward of the election.
There’s quite a bit the area committees are anticipated to sort out within the new yr. Listed here are a number of the high priorities.
From the highest
Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), who chairs the Home Science, Area, and Expertise Committee, shared his to-do listing with Polaris, beginning with subsequent steps for the Commercial Space Act of 2023 that he launched in November with Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX).
“We’ve had great stakeholder help for that laws, and I’m keen to maneuver it ahead in 2024,” Lucas mentioned in an e-mail.
Different priorities for the chairman embody contemplating a NASA reauthorization invoice (“It’s time we handed laws to present the company up to date path,” Lucas mentioned) and conserving the Artemis program on monitor.
“Area is a aggressive area, and America can’t afford to fall behind to adversaries just like the Chinese language Communist Get together,” he mentioned. “The necessity for American management will underlie all of our legislative efforts within the new yr.”
Different aspect of the aisle
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the highest Dem on the Science, Area and Expertise Committee, famous that Democrats, being within the minority, don’t have a ton of management over the panel’s agenda.
“That mentioned, over the previous yr, Democrats of the Science Committee have been capable of come collectively to maneuver many bipartisan payments with our Republican colleagues. I’ve loved working with my buddy and colleague, Chairman Frank Lucas, very a lot this previous yr. I anticipate that as we enter 2024, we are going to proceed to ship bipartisan options for People and help our management in area and aeronautics,” she mentioned in a press release.
Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), who simply wrapped up his first yr in Congress and as rating member of the panel’s area subcommittee, additionally praised the committee for its bipartisan work in 2023.
“I do know the committee will proceed to play a significant function in transferring vital laws ahead to permit our nation to increase management in human exploration, analysis, and discovery. I’m enthusiastic about discovering further methods to help NASA’s world management together with the Artemis and Moon to Mars applications, whereas concurrently constructing a various STEM pipeline and workforce, and fostering development of our business area sector,” he mentioned in a press release.
Funds battles
Congress’ first order of enterprise is passing appropriations payments for fiscal 2024 to maintain the federal government funded. Below final yr’s two-tired persevering with decision, funding for area applications inside the federal authorities will run out at totally different instances:
- FAA cash underneath the Transportation Division will run out on Jan. 19.
- Different area workplaces, together with NASA, DoD, and the Commerce Division, will finish on Feb. 2.
Open query
One other query earlier than Congress is which businesses must be accountable for regulating and approving novel area missions, similar to business area stations or in-space servicing. The White Home has put forth its personal proposal, which splits accountability between the FAA and the Commerce Division.
That plan has already met some pushback from business teams—and appears fairly totally different from the thought put forth by the Home, which might designate the Division of Commerce’s Workplace of Area Commerce as the one level of authorization for novel area missions.
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