Source: United States Senator for Oklahoma James Inhofe
Today, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, gave an opening statement at a committee hearing to consider the nomination of Lieutenant General B. Chance Saltzman for promotion to General and to be the next Chief of Space Operations.
Click here to view Inhofe’s opening statement.
Inhofe: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to extend a welcome to the General, and I appreciate the time you spent with me, giving me an idea of what you have in your mind and also the fact that you have your family here today, it’s very meaningful to us. We appreciate that very much, because you are not going to see a lot of them in the days to come.
Our National Defense Strategy is not shy about the scope and scale of the threat from China, and the speed of their advances. There’s no better example of that than space. In a decade, the United States has gone from the unquestioned leader in space to merely one of two peers in a competition. Most people don’t realize that.
There’s a lot China and Russia are doing in space we can’t talk about today, but even what we can talk about publicly is very concerning. For years, we kept noting that everything our military does relies on space. But we never really acted like it. Worse yet, space is no longer simply an enabler for other functions.
So, we have a different environment all together today, and you’re only the second one to take on this awesome responsibility, and we appreciate very much the effort that you’re making and the background that you bring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.