Earlier this week, members of Colorado’s congressional delegation issued a joint statement claiming that the U.S. Air Force’s decision to permanently locate the U.S. Space Command in Huntsville was “flawed.”
The statement comes on the heels of the congressmen receiving a verbal briefing on the findings of a report they requested from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General to investigate the Air Force’s decision.
The GAO allows the parties that request such a review to learn of its findings prior to its public release. Even though the report’s findings were to remain confidential while under review by the Air Force and Secretary of Defense, the lawmakers made public their conclusions about the report’s results.
Pushing back against the Colorado lawmakers’ narrative was U.S. Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) and Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham), who on Thursday issued a joint statement of their own declaring Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal to be the proper home of the Space Command.
In the statement, the congressional officials speak to Huntsville’s role in being the nation’s premier aerospace hub and expressed confidence that the report would show that the Air Force’s decision was correct.
“There is no better place for our nation’s Space Command headquarters than the Rocket City,” advised Aderholt and Sewell. “Huntsville is the world’s premier hub for space exploration and innovation, and we resoundingly support the 2021 decision to locate it there. We stand by the Air Force’s decision that Huntsville is the best and only home for U.S. Space Command. We look forward to reviewing the Government Accountability Office’s report and remain confident that an objective analysis of the facts will yield the same conclusion.”
A number of high-ranking Yellowhammer State elected officials in January joined a public effort to proclaim that the Space Command belonged in the Rocket City.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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