This week’s print edition of Space News has an article with a few interesting noted about HR 5382. According to the article, the bill was initially caught in a hold placed by Sen. John McCain on a number of “late-breaking bills” sent over from the House. McCain then agreed to a request by Sens. Sam Brownback and James Inhofe, supporters of the bill, to let the bill through. However, another senator then placed a hold on the bill just before the Senate recessed for Thanksgiving; the hold was anonymous but a source told Space News it appears to have come from a Democratic member.
If that hold is lifted—an uncertain proposition since no one appears to know who placed the hold and why—the bill still faces another obstacle. The bill’s passage during a brief, final lame-duck session next week is dependent on it going through on unanimous consent, meaning that any member could block it. The article suggests that Rep. James Oberstar, the Congressman who led the opposition to the bill in the House, might be able to persuade a Senator to do that. One Congressional aide mentioned in the article believes the bill has, at best, a 50-50 chance of passage: odds that actually sound pretty good given the obstacles it faces, and the number of times the bill has been declared all but dead in the past.
