Prepared Remarks by the Hon. Mark Udall for the Third Annual U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Conference
Good morning. It’s nice to see some familiar faces, and I look forward to getting to know the rest of you over time. As you may know, I currently serve as Ranking Member of the House Science Committee’s Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. I also serve on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Resources Committee.
In carrying out my responsibilities on those Committees, I have been struck by the important role that the nation’s commercial and governmental remote sensing activities can and do play in advancing knowledge, improving the quality of life here on Earth, spurring economic development, and protecting our nation’s security. In short, you all can take pride in the contributions you make to our nation’s welfare through your involvement in remote sensing.
When I talk about remote sensing most people associate it with finding their house on Google Earth or the new images CNN’s Wolf Blitzer uses on The Situation Room. But this technology has many more applications that have a daily impact on our quality of life. Remote sensing systems allow us to obtain important information about vegetation, wildlife habitat, flood plains, agriculture, transportation corridors, soil types, and many other things.
Today, I would specifically like to highlight the applications this technology offers to many cities and municipalities. For example, emergency management has always been an important responsibility of state and local governments. But in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the scope of this responsibility has broadened.
Geospatial technology can help states and localities identify the location, nature, and scope of potential vulnerabilities and the impact of potential hazards, as well as how to respond to events and recover from them. There are also many planning applications where localities can effectively utilize geospatial data. In my home state of Colorado, we have seen a rapid increase in the state’s population over the last decade.
Many communities, particular along the Front Range, are struggling to adjust to this growth and are working to address a growing number of housing developments and crowded roads in a state without an extensive public transportation system. This problem is not unique to Colorado. Many communities throughout the country are experiencing population growth that places escalating demands on their infrastructures.
As cities and counties attempt to address these issues, many are seeking to more efficiently manage land and water resources to accommodate current needs and future demands. In that regard, I don’t think anyone in this audience needs to be convinced that state and local governments and communities could use geospatial information in a variety of applications to improve the quality of life for their citizens - including information in such areas as urban land-use planning, coastal zone management and erosion control, transportation corridor management, environmental planning, and agricultural and forest management.
Now Colorado is lucky enough to have two major remote sensing companies within the state and many companies that support the industry. The close proximity to providers of this data has allowed Colorado cities, counties and municipalities to better utilize geospatial data for their planning purposes. However, there are still many communities in Colorado and elsewhere that could benefit from these capabilities but for a variety of reasons are not.
Studies have identified some of the challenges that public and private geospatial data providers and state and local government face in utilizing this data. For example, many state and local governments do not have an organized method to archive images. This can result in the purchase of the same data multiple times, each for a different purpose, making the use of this data more costly. There has also been difficulty in connecting cities and counties who would like to purchase this information with entities that can provide it. And sometimes, state and local government simply do not consistently have the resources available to purchase data to meet their needs.
Ultimately, we need to do more to encourage the dissemination of this data so that the advances in technology can have operational value in our economy. And we need to do more to acquaint our state and local governments of the power of the data to meet their needs. To that end, I introduced the Remote Sensing Applications Act in the 107th Congress.
One of my prime motivations for introducing this bill was to address the concern I just discussed - the problem of excess growth and sprawl. My goal was to point to a way to utilize the resources of the Federal Government and the commercial sector to help foster wise community planning and management at the local level. Specifically, the bill would establish within NASA a program of grants for competitively awarded pilot projects. The purpose of the pilot projects would be to explore the integrated use of commercial and governmental sources of remote sensing and other geospatial information to address state, local, regional, and tribal agency needs.
I reintroduced the bill in both the 108th and the current Congress. It appears that the third time was a charm, as the bill was incorporated into the recently passed NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which the President signed into law at the end of last year.
While I realize this law does not solve all of the challenges I outlined earlier, I think it will provide much needed resources for state and local governments to seek out geospatial data, demonstrate the power of that data to meeting public needs, and concurrently provide more visibility at the state and local level into the capabilities of the commercial remote sensing industry.
Having established the program in law, our next challenge is to ensure adequate funding for it within the NASA budget, and I intend to work for its inclusion in the 2007 appropriation for NASA.
However, I don’t want to minimize the challenge that we face this year. The FY 2007 NASA budget request that was submitted to the Hill on Monday is very constrained, and NASA’s science and applications programs have not been given the same priority in it as its human space flight programs. As a result, I think that it is going to be an uphill battle this year to provide the type of funding these remote sensing pilot projects deserve.
Nevertheless, we took the first big step when we were able to get the program authorized in law late last year. And I thus am optimistic that when all is said and done, we ultimately will be successful in getting adequate funding for the initiative.
As you all are aware, in 2003 President Bush announced a commercialization policy for the remote sensing industry. Properly executed, it could result in a “win-win” outcome for both government and industry. There has been progress since the policy was announced, but there is always more to be done. We should do all we can to encourage greater commercial involvement in remote sensing applications to meet public needs.
Many state and local governments I have met with have informed me of a variety of ways in which they can benefit from this data. I think that there is a significant market at the state and local level for this data and information. The commercial remote sensing industry and its associated “value-added” providers have much to offer to those state and local entities - but those entities need to be made aware of that fact - and have it demonstrated to them.
I look forward to seeing how the capabilities of our remote sensing systems will be used in the coming years to meet public needs. I think the future is bright.
In closing, I believe the commercial remote sensing industry can and should play a key role in disseminating this information to meet the needs of our state and local governments, and I want to continue to work with all of you to try to make that happen. Again, thanks for having me here today, and I would be happy to take any questions you may have.
Next Article Previous Article