{"id":4225,"date":"2009-02-10T01:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T07:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/lawmakers-consider-spaceport-related-bills\/"},"modified":"2009-02-10T01:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-10T07:40:00","slug":"lawmakers-consider-spaceport-related-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/02\/lawmakers-consider-spaceport-related-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers consider spaceport-related bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are a couple of interesting and potentially controversial bills related to Spaceport America<\/a> working their way through the New Mexico Legislature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

House Bill 200<\/a>, sponsored by Bobby Gonzales<\/a>, D-Taos, would exempt from the Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a> any proprietary technical or business information the New Mexico Spaceport Authority obtains related to the possible expansion of a business.<\/p>\n

Essentially, that would allow the spaceport authority to withhold information it learns about companies considering doing business in New Mexico that, if it were available to the company\u2019s competitors, might harm the company. The state\u2019s Economic Development Department already has a similar exemption from the public records act. The argument is that without such confidentiality, the spaceport authority might not be able to attract space-related companies to New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The bill has been given a do-pass by the House Health and Governmental Affairs Committee<\/a> but must be OK\u2019d by the House Judiciary Committee before it reaches the House floor.<\/p>\n

The other interesting piece of legislation is Senate Bill 37<\/a>, sponsored by Clinton Harden<\/a>, R-Clovis, which would protect companies doing business at the spaceport against civil lawsuits from passengers and allow companies to require waivers before they take passengers into space. Other states, including Florida and Virginia, have already approved such laws, so the argument is that this bill is also necessary to attract space-related companies to New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The Senate Public Affairs Committee<\/a> has forwarded the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee without a recommendation.<\/p>\n

The fiscal impact report<\/a> for Harden\u2019s bill notes that the spaceport authority, which is insured through the state\u2019s Risk Management Division, requires those who lease facilities at the spaceport to carry \u201ccertain levels of insurance.\u201d The only current lease holder is Virgin Galactic, which signed its lease in December<\/a>. If the bill becomes law, such leases \u201cwill have to be reviewed and perhaps amended to account for decreased liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translation: This bill might mean Virgin doesn\u2019t have to pay the state as much money as it\u2019s already agreed to pay over the course of its 20-year lease.<\/p>\n

The bill is being sponsored by Harden, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>, at Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s<\/a> request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a couple of interesting and potentially controversial bills related to Spaceport America working their way through the New Mexico Legislature. House Bill 200, sponsored by Bobby Gonzales, D-Taos, would exempt from the Inspection of Public Records Act any proprietary technical or business information the New Mexico Spaceport Authority obtains related to the possible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}