What Really Happened With S724?

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I think it is time to clear up some of the misconceptions regarding the creation and attempted passage of Senate Bill S724. Frankly, I'm not much for Monday morning quarter backing. However, a recent review of the postings on the Internet shows that a great deal of misinformation is being spread around. Some of the posters are gleefully posting wrong information to smear me and/or ARSA. Others are only working with fragmentary truth and filling in the gaps incorrectly. I think I can clear this up better than most as I had a front row seat in the creation and attempted passage of S724.

In late November 2002, I called Senator Enzi's office after learning about the Safe Explosives Act (SEA) embedded inside the Homeland Security Act (HSA). I briefed them on the situation. I quickly set up a web page with the new Safe Explosives Act (SEA) and posted what we were trying to accomplish. It was simple. The goal was to get rocketry in general out from under the SEA as quickly as possible and certainly before May 24, 2003. I had posted ideas and solicited ideas on exemption strategies. I received many emails from people with positive approaches.

Working with Senator Enzi, we decided on two basic approaches. The first was to go directly to the White House and seek an executive order to exempt rocketry from the SEA. This could be done quickly, but was decided against as the White House was preparing for the invasion of Iraq. The feeling was that our problem would fall through the cracks during the more important invasion planning.

The second option was the one we decided to go with. It was to stick an exemption for rocketry on a technical corrections bill for the HSA. Senator Lott, who was going to be the new Senate majority leader, had planned to introduce this bill early in the January 2003 session of the Senate. This was a bill that would be signed by President Bush and we could be buried in this thick document. The bill would be on a fast track and probably signed into law in February, 2003. The success of that plan required no one to really know about it. Bringing TRA or NAR into the picture would have put the plan at great risk, as the information was bound to leak out with more people in the loop.

To our misfortune, Senator Lott made public remarks that cost him the leadership of the Senate. With that loss, came the loss of his priorities as well, including the technical corrections bill. You may recall a letter campaign to the new majority leader, Senator Frist, promoting a technical corrections bill and asking that it be moved up on the calendar. He did not see the importance of the bill and had scheduled it for consideration in the summer. We had the option of waiting until the summer, forget it completely or go with a stand alone bill.

At this time, the hobby businesses were in free fall financially. They were getting a double hit from motor shipping problems and scared consumers. All due to the HSA. As we looked at the options, it also became apparent to us that there was not going to be a technical corrections bill to the HSA. That left either a stand alone bill or forget it. For Senator Enzi, the politically smart thing to do would have been to forget it, but he felt passionately about trying to help the hobby. While everyone had wished the lawsuit by NAR and TRA would solve the problem, we knew a decision was not coming in 2003 despite public predictions by some to the contrary. If we did nothing, there was no hope. Moving forward with a stand alone bill would be difficult, but it could succeed if it was worked right. The decision was made by Senator Enzi to go for it.

Now, we were left with the option we had wanted the least, a stand-alone bill going for a rocketry exemption in the SEA. Everybody knew that this bill, standing "naked" by itself, would be hit hard by the ATFE and those sympathetic to the ATFE. We knew it would be attacked from all directions and that the ATFE would try to put weight limits on it as well as try to kill it outright. Plans of action were laid out for the various eventualities such as killed in committee, a "wounded duck" coming out of committee, and so on. Many have claimed we were ill prepared for the battle, but that is not true. We had plans for all contingencies. We even had a plan for the committee stonewalling on weight limits. We had another approach in our pocket that we felt would work. Shortly before the bill was introduced, we had the ATFE review it and get their comments. So, we knew where they were coming from and where they would attack it. If we errored at this point, it was that while we knew the ATFE's opposition would be intense, we did under estimate how intense it would and how devious they would be. Where we got completely blind sided was the interference of TRA and NAR in the process.

I should have seen that one coming. The initial NAR and TRA position was to be against the legislative effort. They said rocketry's salvation would be the lawsuit. They blasted me and the legislative effort on all available Internet forums. Unfortunately, members of TRA and NAR were putting pressure on their respective boards to "help" with the legislative effort. While the intent of the members was well meaning I cringed as this went on because I knew the boards would eventually come to "help". It was clear in emails from Mark Bundick that if NAR was going to be involved, they were going to run and direct the effort. Bruce Kelly and Dick Embry of TRA felt the same way. I tried to get the two organizations to take a supporting role by simply encouraging their members to write Congressmen when asked, but to stay out of the day to day effort to steer the bill through Congress. I suggested they focus their time and limited money on trying to win the lawsuit. I told them hiring a lobbyist was not necessary, nor wise. We had a team of Senators and their staffs ready to work for passage of the bill at no cost to anyone. TRA and NAR would not listen.

While these distractions were going on, we started to write the text for the bill. Some have tried to make something about the bill being written in secret with TRA and NAR out of the loop. It is true that S724 was written by myself and Senator Enzi's staff. However, I had posted on the web site the specific goals of the legislation such as exempting igniters and so on. While the wording of the bill was not publicly disclosed, the goal was clearly stated on our web site and known to all. No one in the hobby to my knowledge had any problem with the goals. As a matter of Senate protocol, you do not publicly disclose the wording of a bill before introduction except to members of your own political party and select members of the other party. TRA and NAR were felt to be a risk with respect to the text of the bill being disclosed prior to introduction. This was latter proven to be a well founded fear.

We did solicited suggestions on changing the SEA bill. I received many emails from people with helpful suggestions that eventually found their way into the bill. I did not receive one single suggestion from TRA or NAR except get out and turn it over to us. I knew we were in serious trouble when NAR and TRA hired John Kyte. He had a personal agenda of getting money out of TRA and NAR. He made it clear to me in a phone call that he was upset that he had provided "free" public relation services to TRA and NAR on the lawsuit. This time he intended to be paid. As Kyte and Bundick are friends, Bundick arranged to have Kyte paid a total of $30,000 for his services for helping the legislative effort. He was paid by the month.

TRA, NAR and Kyte could not have come into the picture at a worse time. Myself and Senator Enzi's staff were working on the final wording of the bill and he was lining up cosponsors. We were extremely busy and Kyte was chomping at the bit to get involved in the bill. Finally, he just burst into Candice Cotton's office without an appointment and informed her he represented the two largest hobby rocketry organizations. They were going to be involved in the legislative effort whether Enzi liked it or not. Candice was Senator Enzi's lead staffer on the bill. She was polite, gave Kyte a copy of the current draft of the bill and told him Enzi would listen to their comments. Kyte, TRA and NAR immediately had the draft bill posted to the ROL news page. This lasted only a short time before it was pulled off the ROL page. I called Candice when I learned about it and apologized for Kyte's behavior.

There was a lot of back room negotiations with Senators on cosponsoring and at the same time the ATFE was doing arm twisting of their own. ATFE lobbying was totally illegal, but we could never obtain hard evidence to prove it. I organized a team of volunteers to help with future letter writing and managing media coverage. It was truly amazing at the depth of the support we had and from a broad cross-section of the hobby. Someone mentioned on their web site about the lack of a PR campaign to support S724. I don't know where this person was last year, but we had major, big time national coverage after the bill's introduction. All of it positive. Most people think that probably happened by accident. It didn't. The ATFE was desperately trying to get a major negative story going nationally. Every time they had a reporter going their way, we had one of the volunteers contact the reporter and turned the story around with the truth. Those people were the unsung heros of the S724 effort. They were amazing. The success of the "Fly Rockets.Com" commercial was due to many of these same people.

Well, we hobbled down the legislative field with our ball and chain, i.e., TRA, NAR and Kyte. It was a bit tedious with their constant nonsense. If I posted that we wanted people to write their congressmen, the knee-jerk reaction of NAR and TRA was don't write. Then, later TRA and NAR would tell their members to write. Usually a period of a day or two would elapse. This happened every single time. Bundick took to signing all his postings and emails with a message basically saying - don't write or do anything at this time until I tell you to.

Still, we were making some progress and the media coverage was broad and good. We arranged for Senator Enzi to be at the Team America launch. It was not our first choice. Candice and I had hoped to get him to another launch in the Washington, D.C. area, which had a larger variety of rocket motors and experimental. Unfortunately, his schedule did not permit it. So Candice pushed Senator Enzi's scheduler to arrange it so he could attend the Team America launch, which turned out ok as we received good national coverage such as CNN.

Senator Hatch was planning to just blow off S724 and not get around to it in committee. Senator Enzi talked to Hatch and convinced him to seriously consider the bill. In the initial discussion with Hatch's staff, it was clear they wanted weight limits. This was no surprise to us and we had a variety of arguments against weight limits. The letter/fax and phone call campaign was definitely working here. Aerotech had called Hatch's office and put the spin to Hatch's staffer we wanted and it was working.

At the same time, we were working the House. The opposition to the bill was even stronger there, but again along the same lines. They wanted weight limits. We had a plan for that and we were working it. We knew these negotiations would be damn tough and brutal. We had no illusions on that. I had even posted on a ROL forum that it would be down in the trenches before it was done and if you didn't have the stomach for it - stay out of it. We did not need or want, people or organizations that would cave in on the first sign of STRONG opposition. I didn't think NAR or TRA had the stomach for what was coming or the backbone. This was proven to be accurate.

We were in difficult discussions with Hatch's staff on weight limits. Hatch wanted them, we did not. We were wearing them down and Hatch's staff was starting to become sympathetic. Hatch was still holding out even though his staff was caving. I believe a few more weeks would have made the difference. Also, we still had our reserve bill to play, if needed Then, S724 was sunk when Hatch asked his staff to get ideas from the rocket hobby industry on alternatives. TRA, NAR and Kyte entered into direct negotiations with Hatch' staff and the bill headed South.

Now, this is the "He said, She said part". If you are a TRA/NAR true believer, nothing I say will convince you. If you hate TRA/NAR, no denial from them will convince you. Since the fate of the bill, blew up on this point. Nobody is going to stand up and say, "Yup, it was me!" I will tell you what I know. After Kyte started private negotiations with Senator Hatch's staff, we started getting cut out of the process. Candice Cotton told me the revised bill had weight limits, but we didn't know what they were. Curiously enough, only TRA, NAR and Kyte seemed to know.

We got pushed so far out of the loop that when the bill was first scheduled to come out of committee Senator Enzi and his staff did not even know about it, only Kyte, TRA and NAR knew. Candice Cotton who had been leading the effort for Enzi was even out of town on vacation the day the bill was supposed to be marked up in committee. She had no idea the bill was coming out of committee then.

While all of this was going on, we tried to salvage the original bill, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Senator Enzi went into political damage control mode and tried to put the best face possible on a very bad bill he was not at all happy with. I don't blame him for that as that is what you have to do in politics. We tried one last letter writing effort to the committee in hopes of saving it. We knew it was a long shot, but what the hell. Again, TRA and NAR sabotaged that by initially telling members not write and then telling members to write only if a committee member is in your state. What nonsense! On a national issue, you get all the letters where you can and from who you can.

When it became clear that we were going to get a very bad bill out of Hatch's committee, a contingency plan to minimize damage was implemented. It called for the general definition for non-detonable propellant to be taken out of the bill. That was done. We also did not want the bill coming out of committee put on a "fast track" for passage by the Senate. To do that, we had to make sure the committee vote was not unanimous. Senator Craig made sure it was not a unanimous vote. We had regained control over the fate of the bill, but ironically, it was not our bill. It was the Hatch-Kohl S724.

At this point, we looked at the options available to salvage the original bill, pursue alternatives or just let it die. The Senators and staffers opinion was that the H-K S724 had no chance of moving any further. A unanimous consent attempt would fail and floor debate on the bill was not going to happened. So, the facts made the decision. The H-K S724 bill was dead and since we had no chance of a floor debate to fix H-K S724, we could not restore the original S724. The only alternative was to pursue an alternative approach. We all agreed that was the option with some hope. Consequently, an ARSA focus group was started to work and help implement an alternative approach outside of H-K S724. We have been and are continuing to do that.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but laugh to myself at this point. You see there was some moron on RMR who claimed the focus group did not exist and that it was a figment of my imagination. I believe he said, "I simply went into a fun house full of mirrors and imagined it as I was mentally ill". To the guys in the focus group, "Remember, you don't exist! You are just part of my imagination!". Seriously, I look forward to the day when this group can step out of the shadows.

I must admit I was very puzzled when I read that TRA and NAR under the direction of Kyte were going to try and get H-K S724 passed by unanimous consent. First, I thought everybody had agreed the bill was a stinker. Second, all the Senators and staffers said it had no chance so I could not and still do not know why they choose to pursue this. The official Senate press release on the bill said its supporters would try to move the bill forward, but that was for public consumption and political damage control. I thought Kyte must know that. What's going on? To this day, I still don't have the answer.

On what happened next, I only know what was posted publicly. Apparently, NAR and TRA with Kyte's guidance tried to get H-K S724 passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. When they called for a letter writing campaign against Senators Lautenberg and Schumer, I thought, "Boys, you better make sure your helmets are on!". Boom!!! Senators Lautenberg and Schumer shoved it right back up the asses of TRA and NAR big time. Since the ARSA focus group was working on an alternative approach, we could not let Lautenberg and Schumer statements stand so we put the ARSA focus team into damage control. Ironically, to repair damage done by the NAR and TRA letter writing campaign. ARSA published counter points to Senators Lautenberg's and Schumer's anti-rocketry statements.