Science and Innovation

Originally published in: Space News Satellite imaging providers last year welcomed new rules from the Commerce Department that streamlined the licensing process for private operators. The revamped regulations were intended to help U.S. remote sensing companies compete in the booming global market for space-based data.  But as the industry continues to introduce… Read more »

Originally published in: Space Policy The new chairman of the House space subcommittee thinks Congress will need to strike a balance between addressing national security and privacy concerns about commercial satellite remote sensing data yet not over-regulating the business. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) is skeptical legislation will pass anytime soon, but a hearing on the issues is a… Read more »

Originally published on DC News Now [Video Linked Here] Read more »

Originally published in: The Washington Post In his first two weeks in office, President Biden wasted no time dismantling wide swaths of Donald Trump’s legacy, revoking more than 30 orders signed by his predecessor while rejoining the Paris climate accord, ending the ban on travel from some Muslim-majority countries and halting construction on a wall at the U.S.-Mexico… Read more »

Originally published on Politico.  NASA engineers flawlessly did their job on Thursday, safely landing a rover on the surface of Mars after a journey of 130 million miles. Now, it’s up to Congress to make sure that big plans for follow-on missions become a reality. The Perseverance rover, affectionately nicknamed “Percy,” is now in place to collect Martian dust samples that… Read more »

Originally published in Space Policy Online. President Biden, Vice President Harris and a host of congressional leaders sent NASA congratulations today after the successful landing of the Mars Perseverance rover on Mars.  The car-sized rover, equipped with a helicopter and a system to collect samples for later return to Earth, survived the perilous “Seven Minutes of Terror” from the… Read more »

On Monday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Brian Morris for the District of Montana granted the Biden Administration’s motion to vacate the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule for “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information.” This decision follows Chief Judge Morris’s ruling last week that… Read more »

Reversing the Trump administration's numerous harmful efforts to censor science Originally published in The Hill By Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR.), Paul Tonko (D-NY), and Don Beyer (D-VA.) As lawmakers and leaders on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, we rely on the scientific community to inform everything we do, from confronting public health threats caused by the… Read more »

Rep. Don Beyer today issued the following statement after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the finalization of its controversial rule restricting which science the agency can rely on when crafting regulations, which would dramatically weaken the scientific foundations of the EPA’s public health regulations:   “This rule is an abominable… Read more »

Rep. Don Beyer this week introduced the COVID-19 Long Haulers Act, which would authorize and fund research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PICORI) to benefit so-called “long haulers,” people who experience long term effects of COVID-19 infections. From the beginning of the pandemic medical researchers have documented a wide… Read more »