Jim Oberstar has lost. Not just lost his chairmanship of the House committee that oversees the FAA, but he’s completely gone from Congress.
What does this mean? It means that there’s a reasonable chance of getting an extension to the moratorium on FAA-AST regulation of passenger safety, which was due to expire in 2012. The suborbital industry hasn’t advanced as much as anticipated when the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act was passed in late 2004, so eight years wasn’t enough. The new chairman will probably be current ranking member John Mica of Florida. His district runs from the northern Orlando suburbs up to the coast from Daytona to St. Augustine, which isn’t really part of the space coast, but it’s just north of it, so I imagine he’ll be amenable to legislation that will help business there.
The Aviation subcommittee, currently run by Russ Carnahan of Missouri, will probably go to ranking member Tom Petri of Wisconsin. From his profile:
A persistent foe of government waste, Petri has repeatedly earned high marks from such organizations as the National Taxpayers Union, the Concord Coalition, Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Watchdogs of the Treasury. Over many years he has repeatedly been named a “Guardian of Small Business” by the National Federation of Independent Business, and has won the “National Security Leadership Award” from the American Security Council.
Petri is known for his efforts to apply innovative solutions to problems, with a firm commitment to cost-effectiveness. Accordingly, Norm Ornstein, a prominent political scholar and expert on Congress, has called Petri “one of the most thoughtful members of Congress, filled with lots of ideas about how to make government better,” while senior Washington Post columnist David Broder has called him “a notably independent, creative legislator.”
Seems like he’d also be amenable to sensible legislation that promotes commercial spaceflight, which will also help NASA save money.
It’s really hard to appreciate what great and unexpected news this is. There were a lot of indications that Oberstar was in trouble, but it was still hard to believe that he could actually lose his election. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation should plan on trying to move some legislation this year. It’s hard to believe that the administration would be opposed, given its commercial-friendly space policy in general.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I just realized that I didn’t explain why Oberstar was so bad. Go read this article from 2005 at The Space Review.
[Update a while later]
Here’s a little disappointing news on the space front. I was hoping that Gabbie Giffords would lose in Arizona, and she almost did, but it looks like the libertarians kept her in office, by a couple thousand votes. But at least she’ll no longer chair the space subcommittee. Same thing happened to rocket scientist Ruth McClung. If those libertarians had voted for her, they’d have defeated (Arizona-bashing) Grijalva.
I often, even mostly vote libertarian in elections, to make a political point, but never in one that tight. I do prefer the lesser of the two evils, and it was particularly important in this election to remove as many Democrats as possible.
[Update early afternoon]
The Arizona races are still too close to call.
I’m with you until the last line:
It’s hard to believe that the administration would be opposed, given its commercial-friendly space policy in general.
I don’t disagree that the general election news will be good for commercial space. And key blockades are certainly moved out of the way. But I think the administration is only helping in the way that my enemy’s enemy helps.
I think it was in a Space Show discussion where it was mentioned that with early fliers listed as participants instead of passengers, they and their estates could be held liable in case of an accident and damage/injury to the public. At first I thought the idea was crazy, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a high-priced lawyer would have a field day with it.
I haven’t seen discussion about that angle anywhere else. Has anyone?
As a card-carrying dues-paying Libertarian for many years, I still had to agree. I voted almost straight Republican this time.
“But I think the administration is only helping in the way that my enemy’s enemy helps.”
They just got out of the way of the practically inevitable circular firing squad. After trucking in a couple of boxes of ammo.
Jim Oberstar has lost. Not just lost his chairmanship of the House committee that oversees the FAA, but he’s completely gone from Congress.
Not to disagree with you that the absence of Oberstar is pleasing, but the AST portion of FAA actually falls under the Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, not the Aviation Subcommittee.
See Committee Rule 11(a)(4). http://science.house.gov/subcommittee/space.aspx
I have no reason to believe that Mica or Petri would be interested in asserting jurisdiction, as Oberstar attempted to do.
On the other hand, the new chairman of the Space Subcommittee will likely be Rep. Pete Olson (R-JSC), who co-sponsored the recent House version of the NASA Re-authorization Bill that went after commercial space with both barrels. It will be important to convince him that space is important to America, not just pork for his own district. One key will be who the chairman of the full Science Committee is.
The loss that pleases me most is not Oberstar but Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, the demagogue’s demagogue and one of the loudest screamers among the Constellation huggers.
Hey Ed, I agree with you on Rep. Pete Olson.
The suborbital industry hasn’t advanced as much as anticipated when the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act was passed in late 2004, so eight years wasn’t enough.
That’s an understatement. 🙂
Please forgive my political naivete, but where does Dana Rohrabacher fit into all of this now that control is shifting to his party? After all, he is already a member of the Committee on Science and Technology and its Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. Any chance that he will be assigned a higher committee or subcommittee position? If so, his persistently pro-commercial stance could make a difference.
Dana is hoping to become the Chairman of the Science Committee. It will be between him and Ralph Hall. Dana actually has seniority, because Hall is a former Democrat, but the deal Hall made when he switched parties in 2004 said the Republican leadership would recognize his years as a Democrat. The leadership has changed since that time, however, so a deal made by Tom Delay might not carry much weight.
Also, the leadership sometimes ignores seniority entirely. Gabrielle Giffords was only a sophomore Congresswoman when she became chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics and Pete Olsen was made the ranking member as a freshman. It appears that the only thing necessary is to have a NASA center in your district or be married to a NASA astronaut. The House Ethics committee also agreed to ignore Giffords’s conflict of interest based on the technicality that her husband’s salary comes from the Navy, not from NASA. It will be interesting to see if the Tea Party victory affects such shenanigans. (Probably not, since no one pays that much attention to Space and Aeronautics.)
Goodbye James Oberstar. Thanks for the memory.