Executive Summary
In the United States, there exists no one National Outer Space Act and no single U.S. Space Regulatory Agency. Instead, private companies seeking to do business in space face a patchwork quilt of regulations, promulgated by several separate agencies, relying on authorizing statutes that are nearly 100 years old.
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, concluding that Congress must clearly delegate regulatory authority before an agency can act, this paper examines the enabling statutes of the leading agencies that deal with outer space and analyzes whether these agencies have clear authority from Congress to both promulgate and enforce regulations related to activities in outer space.
The current cumbersome and incomplete approach to regulation threatens to slow down U.S. companies, or worse, drive them oversees to seek licenses from foreign jurisdictions willing to more lightly regulate their activities in exchange for fees and potential tax revenues. Moreover, a regulatory system full of friction (both in terms of time, cost, and complexity of compliance) threatens to allow our adversaries to catch up and perhaps become dominant in the new cis-lunar economy.
While drafting comprehensive space legislation is beyond its scope, this paper does highlight the key issues that Congress should address.
