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Senate committee gives favorable report to bill updating U.S. Space and Rocket Center governance
Summary
The Senate Rules Committee voted 10-0 to give House Bill 159 a favorable report. The bill renames the governing commission, imposes term limits for commissioners, extends an audit exemption for historic artifacts, and clarifies operational rules for the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.
At a meeting of the Senate Rules Committee on a date not specified, committee members voted 10-0 to give House Bill 159 a favorable report, updating the governance and statutory language for the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.
The bill renames the governing body, imposes term limits for commissioners, extends an existing audit exemption to historic artifacts in the center’s collection, and clarifies operational provisions including employee holiday schedules and the geographic scope for preserved artifacts. Supporters said the changes modernize a statute first enacted in 1965.
Representative LeBourne, who presented the bill, said, “HB 159 is an update to the Space and Rocket Center statute that was when it was established in 1965, it brings it up to modern day.” He told the committee the current board is known in statute as the Alabama Space and Science Exhibit Commission but the public recognizes the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. “So this bill brings it up to code, updates a lot of things in the language that we need to have to bring it up to modern day boards,” he said.
Under the bill, the governing body’s name would change to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Commission. The measure would add routine legislative diversity language for boards and commissions, impose a limit of two six-year terms for commissioners (with the option to sit out one six-year term before being reappointed), and specify that current commissioners would finish their existing appointments.
Committee discussion also noted that most employees of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center are not considered state employees; the bill would allow the center to determine employee holiday schedules internally. The proposal would extend to the center’s historic artifacts and archival collections an existing exemption from audit by the state auditor’s office, and it would clarify that artifacts housed outside a one-mile radius of the Huntsville center but associated with the collection may be preserved under the commission’s authority.
Senator Roberts moved a favorable report on HB 159; Senator Orr seconded the motion. The clerk called the roll and the committee recorded 10 ayes, no nays; the committee issued a favorable report.
No further business was recorded before the committee adjourned.
