Regulatory Transactions

From: Weekly Standard

HALEY BYRD

The policy directive calls on the Transportation and Commerce departments to make reforms that would encourage commercial space innovation.

The directive follows four recommendations of the National Space Council and gives Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao until February 2019 to review space launch and re-entry licensing process and make changes where the regulatory regime is inefficient, costly, and burdensome to private enterprise. It specifies areas of the licensing process that should receive specific attention during the reform process, including the possibility of requiring just one license for all forms of commercial space launch and re-entry.

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Trump’s directive also tackles the Commerce Department’s role in space licensing, ordering it to come up with a bill within 120 days that would “encourage expansion of the licensing of commercial remote sensing activities.” Remote sensing licensing—better-known as satellite technology—is currently approved by the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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