Lawmakers Seek to Restrict Funding for Space Command HQ

A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the 2024 fiscal year prohibits funding for U.S. Space Command headquarters until after an investigation on the site selection occurs.

The House and Senate Armed Services committees released Thursday the bipartisan conference report that will be voted on by both chambers as a guideline for Pentagon spending through Sept. 30, 2024. The provision prohibits funding projects to construct a headquarters until the Defense Department inspector general and the U.S. comptroller issue reports due June 24 on the decision to place the command headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available for fiscal year 2024 for the Department of Defense," the provision states, "may be obligated or expended to acquire, construct, plan, or design a new headquarters building for United States Space Command until [June 24], when the Inspector General of the Department of Defense and the Comptroller General of the United States shall complete reviews of the selection announced in July of 2023."

Before he left office, then-President Donald Trump announced the headquarters would be in Huntsville, Alabama, but President Joe Biden reversed that decision and said in July the headquarters would stay in Colorado Springs, where Space Command is temporarily headquartered.

Biden's decision to keep the headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base outside of Colorado Springs instead of moving it to Redstone Arsenal, an Army installation in Huntsville, "ultimately ensures peak readiness in the space domain for our nation during a critical period," said Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder in a July 31 news release.

"It will also enable the command to most effectively plan, execute and integrate military space power into multidomain global operations in order to deter aggression and defend national interests."

But Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said the deicision had nothing to do with "readiness," especially given Huntsville beat out four other cities durfing the initial selection process.

"There is no justification for these actions except political considerations," Rogers said during a committee hearing in September. "It is indefensible to turn the fifth-place finisher into the winner of this basing competition.

"We had a nationwide competition to determine the best site for a permanent SPACECOM headquarters. Both the last Air Force secretary and the current Air Force secretary have concurred with and supported the competition results that Huntsville, Alabama is the best location for this permanent headquarters. 

"We need to demonstrate to the American people that preparedness and not politics determines important investments like this, and call for the competition results to be honored."

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