Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004

COMMERCIAL SPACE LAUNCH AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - November 19, 2004)

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. We all salute the innovation and the achievement that we have recently seen in the early days of private space flight, and we certainly do want to encourage that. But we go a little bit too far in this legislation.

I do not understand why the committee has inserted the references to paying passengers and that we would not regulate until after the serious injury or death of paying passengers. It took me a decade here in Congress to strip the FAA of its requirement to promote the industry. That was something adopted in the very early days. It seems to be similar to what is going on here, to say that in the early days the Civil Aeronautics Board would have a charge of promoting the industry and later regulation became more paramount. But up and to and through the 90s until a tragic accident with then Air Tran, the industry was both regulated and promoted by the same agency. I promoted it out for years as a conflict. And it was only after that incident that we finally changed the language and said, no, it would be paramount that they would regulate in the interest of public health and safety.

But here we are again trying to codify the old so-called "tombstone mentality" of the FAA by including paying passengers. It is one thing to say, here is someone who invented something or built something and they are going to try and fly it at their own risk here or here is a professional person who is going to try to fly something that was built by this person, fully knowing the risk; but it is another thing to begin to say paying passengers will fall under the same aegis in this bill.

This was not considered by the Subcommittee on Aviation in any form over the last 2 years. It was never referenced to the Subcommittee on Aviation over the last 2 years. There may have been some communication somewhere with some member of the staff or between some member of that committee and some member of our committee, but not the Subcommittee on Aviation who has jurisdiction over these matters.

So I would suggest that there is not an immediate crisis. There is no reason that this bill must be rushed through today in this form. It could well be passed next year. The liability provisions exist elsewhere and would be continued elsewhere, and then we could have a more thorough discussion of when it would be appropriate to begin to regulate for the health and safety of passengers on these space crafts, that is, I think something that is not wise to codify today because it took us from 1932 or 1933 until 1996 to remove that provision in regards to the FAA, 64 years or so that that carried over.

Even though it was long after the time when the industry needed promotion or the FAA should be conflicting itself with promoting the industry, they were still doing that. And people died because of that. And it may not be in the next year or two, but 8 years is a pretty long time to say we are going to go 8 years before there could be any regulation regarding paying passengers.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I believe that the same level of that same criteria that the gentleman is talking about was in place when airplanes themselves were developing; but we would have had that same level of progress in the development of aviation. Does the gentleman not believe if we had the same level of regulation then that we have now would have just stifled all sorts of creativity at a time when people knew they were taking risks?

My father, I remember when he told me he got in on a plane that flew in on a dirt road and they charged $5 to get on this plane. It was an old World War I SPAT or something. It excited him so much about being able to participate, and because of that we had a whole new industry created because of that.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Reclaiming my time, here we would be looking at presumably much wealthier people paying gigabucks to have the experience. But still I think the point is that it is not necessary to attract entrepreneurs. There are already entrepreneurs out there experimenting. There are professional pilots out there willing to fly these crafts. But to take the next step and say to paying passengers who may or may not be a very knowledgeable and wealthy person or someone of lesser means would be subjected to those risks without any regulation. It just does not seem necessary to promote this industry at this point in time.

It is already moving forward. The liability exemption I believe is the key. But to say that if they are going to go to paying passengers, they could not be regulated, I think that is kind of a bright line where we could draw a line and agree.

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBERSTAR. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would like to reflect on the compromise language he talked about, and, again, since we have not gone through a regular legislative process here, since our committee had no opportunity to review this and it is not amendable on the floor and they would not accept that in good faith, let me point to an unintended effect here.

The way the bill is written, they are granting a blanket exemption to the industry, including paying passengers, until such a point as there is a serious injury or death, and then the full scope of the FAA's current regulations would come to bear.

What the gentleman is proposing here would essentially sanction the experimentation with lighter touch regulation at the outset, and I think that that might actually get us further down this road than what is being proposed here. But the unwillingness of the other side to even consider the implications of extending this to passengers and then whether or not that ever gets sunset or it takes some Member of Congress half a century from now to get that stripped from law, because you know it is 8 years in this bill, but then I can see it being extended and extended and extended and becoming a mature industry, just as the aviation industry did, with that provision still in place, until there is a horrible tragedy.

So I think having this light touch regulation for public interest and safety at the outset, given the expertise of the FAA, would be preferable to all concerned, and it would not stifle or strangle the industry in its nature.

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Again, we could move forward with the liability exemptions absent this language, and the gentleman says that that would then mean that there would be a more dangerous situation prevailing, or is he perhaps saying we would not do the liability at all? Is that what he is saying, we would do nothing? Why not just move forward the liabilities, absent these provisions and these exclusions in the current legislation?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, if I might add, because it puts the government and it puts the bureaucracy in the control of the project, rather than the designer, the entrepreneur and the scientist.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, how did we get to this point? If the government is so in control, how did they have this first flight if the government is overregulating and overcontrolling them?

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If the gentleman would further yield, that is what happens when we give the government the right to say yes or no to people who are making new designs on technology.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if we just extended the existing liability exemptions and we were silent on these other issues, how would that be different than the circumstances which led to these first flights?