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Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) made the following remarks after the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation’s passage of the NASA Transition Authorization Act (S.3346), bipartisan legislation Rubio and other members of the committee introduced this week. The bill lays a blueprint for the next generation of America’s space policy and provides NASA with the resources it needs to advance the space program, benefiting thousands of Florida workers in the aerospace industry.
The bill includes an amendment offered by Senators Rubio, Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), which allows covered entities to enter into space transportation infrastructure agreements with NASA, facilitating cooperation and innovation between the private and public sector on space launches.
Last month, Rubio visited Kennedy Space Center and joined the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast (EDC) for a roundtable discussion about his work to advance aerospace policy with entrepreneurs, engineers and leaders in the industry.
Video of Rubio’s remarks can be watched here and a downloadable broadcast quality version for TV stations is available here. A full transcript of Rubio’s remarks is below.
EL SENADOR MARCO RUBIO
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Washington, D.C.
September 21, 2016
https://youtu.be/nml7QVGxH0U
I just want to, first of all, thank everyone for their help. I am proud to work my colleagues Senator Nelson, of course. Senators Cruz, Peters, Wicker, Udall in the NASA Transition Authorization Act. And I especially want to recognize the leadership of our ranking member, the senior senator from Florida, who has been involved in this issue for a long time and has actually been a visitor to space so that gives him some special standing on some of these issues.
I really think this bill lays out a blueprint for the next generation of American space policy and provides NASA with the resources that it needs to advance our nation’s space program. It’s going to ensure that our nation can avoid in the space program like what we’ve seen with previous cancellations of the Constellation program during the last administration transition. So with this transition coming up, it was really important to lay down that marker. The space program is obviously central to American leadership in the world. It’s obviously critical to Florida. It’s critical to our national security. And NASA’s deep space exploration is complimented by these private commercial initiatives. They also support, by the way, NASA efforts in lower earth’s orbit.
So, again, I am proud to join with my colleagues in this work. It’s critical and important and I think we should be excited about America’s role in the world and space. It inspires a new generation of Americans to have big dreams about the big future that lies ahead for us.