'We Don't Need More' Space Regulations, Says Legislator; FCC Debris Authority Challenged
The U.S. doesn’t need to regulate all commercial activities in space, said House Space Subcommittee ranking member Brian Babin, R-Texas, Wednesday at the annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, urging regulatory agencies to back off. He questioned the FCC’s jurisdiction in updating its orbital debris rules.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The U.S. is likely the most-regulated space-faring nation, Babin said: "Folks, we don't need more." He said the Outer Space Treaty obliges the U.S. to supervise private sector activities, but that can be done via other governance structures. Industry best practices, insurance requirements and standards-setting bodies should all play a primary role in governing space activity, with regulation coming only after a market failure, he said. Commercial actors can be made third parties in any legal claims, and that potential liability incentivizes responsible space behavior, said Babin.
Space agencies have been cutting regulatory red tape in recent years at congressional direction, but the level of success is still being assessed, Babin said. He said FCC efforts seeking new regulatory authority on orbital debris based on the Communications Act is questionable because the law "is of limited relevance to space today." The commission didn't comment. He said Commerce should be a repository for space situational awareness data, but there's concern it might then try to issue space traffic management regulations. He said a National Transportation Safety Board suggestion it have a role in investigating commercial launch failures conflicts with FAA authority.
Over-regulation risks driving space activities to other nations and their more-lenient rules regimes, Babin said. "We cannot afford to scare these folks away" due to the jobs and economic growth and entrepreneurship commercial space represents, he said.
The FAA’s 2021 launch rules streamlining is “a work in progress,” said Wayne Monteith, FAA Office of Space Transportation associate administrator. He said Astra is the first company licensed for a launch under those updated rules (see 2202080055), four more companies are getting licensed, and five others are in the “pre-application” stage, getting their license applications to “complete enough” stage, he said. The FAA’s traditional complete-enough approach was aimed at approvals, but agency efforts to speed up the application evaluation process could mean more denials, said Monteith. He said the FAA's orbital debris rules update is "pretty much done," and it plans to look next at updating its financial responsibility, human spaceflight and spaceport rules. The FAA will chair a spaceport interagency working group to look at U.S. spaceport issues, including needs and resources, he said, and an associated industry advisory board will be created. He said 2021 had 54 FAA-licensed launches in 2021, up from 39 in 2020, and by the end of March there will have been 19 this year.