Senator Enzi spoke to the Senate

04/01/03 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Senator Enzi spoke about 4:18 pm EST today, for about 15 minutes.

The Senator opened his remarks with a personal account of how rocketry inspired him as a youth. He went on to state how since 9/11 we have been working to preserve our way of life, but that an unintended result of the HSA was that the educational and inspiring pastime of rocketry could very well be denied to our children.

Senator Enzi also described how shippers are affected, being unable or unwilling to have background checks performed on all their employees. He said that historically rocketeers could purchase in state, but now a permit was required for even that, and that the “limited permit” was not practical as most rocketeers bought motors inter-state, and crossed state lines to launch.

He asked the permission of the Senate to “display a three-dimensional object”, and once granted, pulled a single 62.5g propellant grain from his pocket. He said the ATF made am exemption for that size, but ¼ longer and it would be illegal. He said that some of his colleagues in the Senate felt his bill was “going too far”, and they were concerned with the safety issue; but Sen. Enzi pointed out the the ATF was not concerned about the flamable propeties of APCP, as it would be legal to purchase any number of 62.5 g propellant grains. He said it was like sayig that you could “buy as many sticks of dynamite as you wanted, you just couldn't buy a whole box”.

All in all it was a very eloquent speech, presented very patiently, but covering the major fallacies of the ATF's position, and underlining the benefit of rocketry to schools, families and as an inspiration towards the space program. He specifically said that rocketry was a family activity enjoyed by “fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and every combination”.

I'm sure that the complete text of his speech will be made available from the US GPO in a few days. Once it is available, I will post a link to it.

• iz