0191 -9067/80/O4O39O-O5$O2.00/0 Copyright c 1980 SUNS AT Energy Council NEWS: PENDING LEGISLATION ON SOLAR POWER SATELLITES FREDERICK H. OSBORN, JR. Executive Secretary SUNSAT Energy Council There are presently two Bills on solar power satellites under consideration by the Congress. The first, HR2335, was passed by the House on November 16. 1979. It provides for $25 million for a research development, and evaluation program to determine the feasibility of solar power satellites as an energy source. The Bill provides for several stopping points where the project may be dropped if “show stoppers” appear. The Bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman Don Fuqua of Florida and Congressman Ronnie G. Flippo of Alabama. It is the second such Bill to be passed by the House in two years. Senator Frank Church of Idaho announced in the early summer that the Subcommittee on Energy R & D, which he chairs, would hold hearings this session on Congressman Flippo’s HR2335, but no hearings have been scheduled as yet. There seems to be little support for imaginative space programs in the Senate at the present time and it is apparently easier to stop space programs than to start them. The Bill is not scheduled for mark-up in the Senate at present. It is doubtful whether it will come to the floor for a vote in the current session. The second Bill involves restoration of funds for DOE/NASA studies of SPS. Early this year $5-1/2 million for continuation of the work of the Satellite Power System Project Office of the Office of Energy Research, Department of Energy, was eliminated from the DOE budget by N. Douglas Pewitt, Deputy Director for Energy Research. Since that time, efforts have been made by individuals who are members of SUNSAT'Energy Council, the L-5 Society, and others to restore these funds to the budget. The House version of the FY81 appropriations bill passed the House in June but with no dollar appropriation for solar power satellites. There was, however, some weak language allowing studies of SPS to continue if the money for the studies were taken from other programs of the Department of Energy. The Senate Appropriations Committee for FY81, which is the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, chaired by Senator J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, was strongly aligned against the program. Despite letters, mailgrams and telephone calls from pro-space voters nothing positive has happened. As of the present writing, July 31, 1980, there is a possibility of a mark-up next week. If the Senate does not authorize dollars to be restored to the Solar Power Satellite Project Office budget there will be no appropriations. If the Senate does provide for dollars the amount will be worked out in conference with the House.
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