UPDATE 1/30: Senate Bill 240 passed the Senate floor unanimously, 34-0. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration.
Just six days after an agreement was announced between New Mexico legislators and executives at Virgin Galactic, a bill that would establish liability safeguards at Spaceport America (Senate Bill 240) glided through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday (Jan. 28) and is already heading to the Senate floor.
“I think we’re on our way,” Senate Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen (D-Las Cruces) told New Mexico Watchdog after the bill passed 9-0. “It’s showing we can work together.”
New Mexico taxpayers have already invested $209 million in Spaceport, the site for scheduled suborbital flights by Virgin Galactic as well as payload launches that have already lifted off at the site near Truth or Consequences.
Virgin Galactic has hinted at possibly abandoning Spaceport if the Legislature does not pass liability protections.
A similar bill to limit liability has been introduced in the House of Representatives, sponsored by Rep. Jim White (R-Albuquerque) and has been assigned to the House Business and Industry Committee. No hearing date has been scheduled yet.
In a related story, Associated Press reported on Monday that Virgin Galactic sent an e-mail to officials at the Spaceport Authority that “Virgin Galactic does not believe the state has finished the work necessary to trigger activation of its $1 million annual rent obligation, and said if the work is not complete to its satisfaction by March 31, it ‘may either stop paying rent, pay reduced rent or give notice to terminate’ its lease.”
Click here to read the AP story.