Good afternoon, wherever you may be joining us from today. My name is Peter Martinez, and I'm the executive director of Secure World Foundation. It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this virtual event today to mark the public launch of our briefing book on space policy and space sustainability for the incoming Biden administration. For those of you who may not be familiar with the concept of space sustainability and the work of Secure World Foundation, allow me to give a brief background about the issues we work on. Our world is increasingly reliant on space systems in many ways that touch the lives of billions of people on a daily basis. Space systems support human and environmental security, national security, commerce and economic development in many ways. Indeed, such are the benefits of space activities that we're witnessing an exciting and accelerating rate of growth in the number and diversity of space actors and the emergence of new kinds of space activities. These developments will bring the benefits of space activities to even more people around while laying the foundations for the future growth of a vibrant space economy. These space systems operate in an environment that is becoming increasingly congested and hazardous. There are currently around 3,000 operational satellites circling the earth and a much larger and growing number of non-functional satellites and other debris in space that pose collision hazards for these space systems upon which we rely so much. Current trends indicate that we will see at least a 10-fold increase in the number of satellites over the coming decade, raising concerns about space life safety. In addition to the challenges posed by space debris and the growing congestion of the earth's orbital environment, we are witnessing a worrying proliferation of counter space capabilities around the world. The testing of anti-satellite weapons in orbit can produce long-lived debris that poses a risk to other space users. These multiple challenges, if not addressed, will seriously compromise our ability to continue to enjoy the benefits of space activities that we have come to take for granted. Space sustainability is therefore about taking the necessary actions to ensure that all humanity can continue to use space for peaceful purposes and economic benefit, now and in the long term. This brings us to Secure World Foundation and the topic of today's briefing. We are a private operating foundation that strives to ensure the secure, sustainable and peaceful uses of outer space contributing to global stability and benefits on earth. We work with governments, industry, international organizations and civil society organizations around the world to develop and promote ideas and actions towards this goal. This chart provides a snapshot of our activities during 2019. Last year, we carried out 102 projects and activities in collaboration with partners in North America, Central America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region and Oceania. Our projects cover different aspects of space sustainability, space security, space policy and space law. There are several ways in which we carry out our mission. Firstly, SWF is a trusted provider of credible, balanced and objective information on the issues pertaining to our mission. We believe that informed, inclusive dialogue needs to be supported with accurate and reliable information. This slide shows some examples of the resources that we produce. This includes our booklet on space sustainability, our handbook for new actors in space, which has been translated into Spanish and is soon to be available in French and Chinese as well and also our open source assessment of global counter space capabilities. These resources are all freely available on our website, www.swfound.org. Another important role we play is to facilitate dialogues that might otherwise not occur. These include unofficial dialogues among experts and officials from different countries to help build common understandings on certain topics that help to lay the foundation for subsequent, more formal dialogues. This slide shows the Space Security Conference, which we co-organized with the United Nations Institute Disarmament Research in Geneva each year. We also stimulate multi-stakeholder discussions on all the different facets of space sustainability. This is an image of a panel discussion in our 2019 Summit on Space Sustainability, which brought together leading international experts from government, industry, and civil society to discuss potential solutions to space sustainability challenges. Another role that we play is to promote awareness of space sustainability issues and cooperative governance solutions. Secure World Foundation has permanent observer status in the United Nations, which allows us to contribute to the discussion in UN bodies related to space, such as the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, shown in this slide. We also support the United Nations in their efforts to build capacity and space law in countries with emerging space programs. Turning now to the topic of today's briefing, America's recent space successes and continuing benefits of space activities are the result of prescient space policy decisions across multiple administrations. From the decision by the Clinton administration to provide full accuracy for civil GPS signals, to the Reagan administration's decision to open up space for commercial participation, to the Obama administration's decision to go ahead with NASA's commercial crew program, space policy decisions can affect the daily lives of everyone and be visible like few other government policy decisions can. The Trump administration sought to bring renewed focus and public visibility to space policy. While some of the Trump administration's decisions and initiatives in the realm of space activities have occasioned criticism, that is more due to the political rhetoric accompanying them rather than the substance. Many of the Trump administration's space policy decisions continue longstanding principles and goals that have persisted across multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat, because they reflect core American values and national interests. First and foremost among those interests is sustained US international leadership in ensuring the long-term sustainability, safety and security of the space domain and space activities. As the incoming Biden administration begins setting its policy agenda for the next four years, Secure World Foundation has developed an issue brief to provide background and recommendations on key issues to help the US meet current and emerging challenges in outer space. This brief contains recommendations on issues ranging from fostering a vibrant commercial space sector to dealing with threats from counter space activities. The briefing document addresses a range of topics. This slide shows an overview of all the topics covered in the issue brief, which is publicly available on the Secure World Foundation website. A selection of these topics will be addressed today by three of the authors of this document. We have decided to structure the briefing in an interview format in which we hope will make it more interesting for you. We are delighted to welcome onto our virtual stage, Jacqueline Feltcher, who will moderate today's discussion. Ms. Feltcher is an award-winning journalist based in Washington DC, covers national security and space for Politico and we're looking forward to the questions that she will pose to our team. Before starting our discussion, let me give you some information to enhance your participation in today's event. It will be possible for you, the audience to ask questions. If you wish to ask questions, please use the Q&A feature in Zoom. Before asking your question, please check the list of questions already asked by other participants and upvote the ones that you would like to see answered. If your question does not appear on the list, please type it in the space provided, but please try to keep it short and simple so that we can get as many questions as possible. If you would like to see closed captions of the discussion, click on the closed captions button at the bottom of the Zoom window and then click on show subtitle. With that, I now turn the floor over to Jacqueline Feltcher. She will introduce our panelists and get the conversation going. Thank you and please enjoy the event. Great, thank you so much, Peter. I am so excited to be here today for this incredibly timely and interesting conversation. I'm joined by three analysts from the Secure World Foundation who worked on the paper. Brian Whedon, the director of program planning, Victoria Stanson, the Washington office director and Ian Christensen, the director of private sector programs. So without further ado, Peter gave us such a great introduction. I want to jump right in and start off with a space force. So the new service was established about a year ago in part to speed up the military's acquisition for space platforms. One of the recommendations in the report is to do more on that front, to be able to restructure the acquisition programs even further. Victoria, I'd like to start with you. Have you seen any improvement on this front in the services first year and what more needs to be done? Well, thank you, Jacqueline. It has been a long road in coming and this has been a conversation that's been had by military officials and national security specialists for decades now about how really to improve military space acquisition. So with the establishment of the space force hitting its one-year birthday just recently, I think the fact that it's still gearing itself together. Part of the problem, though, is that there's still a lack of clarity as to what it's supposed to be, what it's supposed to be solving. What's the problem supposed to be solving? Is it solving military acquisition? Is it meant to provide space deterrence? Is it meant to be a show of force? Is it meant to be the future of national security space? There's been a lot of mixed messaging on that, particularly from the previous administration, the Trump administration that used it as a sense to promote a more, I think, aggressive approach to space than perhaps the documents and the doctrine actually warranted. So we're still in the early stages of figuring out where it's gonna go. My colleague, Brian, can agree with me or not. We really think the Biden administration, it would be helpful to maintain it and then figure out, okay, how do we best focus the discussion so they can really improve military space acquisition so it's responsive and you provide continued military use of our national security space assets. All right, I'm muted. Brian, would you like to add anything there? Yeah, absolutely. So you're absolutely correct. Reforming and improving the way we do national security space acquisitions was absolutely one of the big drivers of the creation of the space force. At this point, it is way too early to tell whether there's actually been any real changes there. We have seen some changes with the creation of the space development to the SDA, but that happened separate from the space force and at this point, SDA is outside of the space force. There was supposed to be earlier this year, a document put out from the space force on how they're gonna do acquisition reform. That has been delayed. It was kind of published and then pulled back, I think because of the sort of bureaucratic debates and challenges and some political challenges from Congress, but this remains one of the areas where we really haven't seen a whole lot yet is how to improve this and how to handle the acquisitions coordination, not only within the space force and SDA and SMC, their existing entities, but also across the services with rolling out sort of the end user devices that match up with the satellites. And then we have how to coordinate with the National Campus Office, which is still going to continue to do intelligent space outside of what the space force is doing. But at the end of the day, we point out a report fixing, which they hold debate about that means, space acquisitions is one of the key areas that space force needs to focus on and sort of starting this process of addressing these challenges is something needs to happen as soon as possible. So Victoria, I do want to follow up on the thing you said about sort of clarifying future missions for the space force, which has faced a lot of misconceptions that are not helped by the Netflix show. So what can the incoming Biden administration do to sort of revamp the PR campaign for the space force, so to speak, how do you present this mission in a way that is serious and to kind of inform the American public what this branch is supposed to be doing? I mean, that's an excellent question. Can't blame Steve Correll for everything. I think they're really tapping into a way of thinking that has I think been often misused deliberately by the Trump administration because it fits into a structure about how they want to promote national security space. I mean, the question really is, how do you really demonstrate to the public that the space force is needed, but also you're not going to be putting boots on the moon? Part of that can be done by being careful of what sort of commercials around would sound silly. But if you talk and see an ad for the space force and it talks about you too, someday it can go into space. I mean, really the space force folks are going to be on the ground controlling satellites, not going anywhere. I'm sorry to say, he may go to a different space base on plenary, which isn't quite as exciting a narrative, but it's what it is. And it's what's needed to be done. So I think stuff like that needs to be done as well. I think that the by demonstration needs to be careful in how they refer to what the space force is going to be doing. Sometimes it gets interwoven with concerns about what's going to be happening with moon, but that's not necessarily what's going to be happening. And so I think it's just, I think a more careful phrasing and discussions about what the space force is intended to do and what is beyond its can yet. Decades out, there may be a whole other conversation about the space force may or may not be doing, but when we're looking at the next five, 10 years, that's it now. And the other thing that we get asked a lot is, well, can the by demonstration just undo the space force? No, it cannot. Congress funded it. Therefore, Congress is going to do it. But it really, the space force does fit in need, as Brian said, for military space acquisition, revamping and figuring out, okay, how do we ensure resilient mission resiliency for national security space capabilities? That need is there. And so it's unlikely that space force will be going away. We just need to figure out how it can be harnessed to be more effective for you as national security goals and guidelines. Brian, do you want to respond to that as well in terms of the PR campaign and even how the lawmakers have obviously approved it, but there are probably many lawmakers who are on the relevant committees on the Hill who even aren't super sure about what this is doing. No, I think just to read a couple of things that Victoria said, I think there were underlying challenges to be addressed. Space force is not perhaps the best solution, but is the solution we have? So the issue is let's make sure that it is focused on addressing those challenges. To emphasize a couple of things Victoria talked about, we hear a lot of discussion about how we're doing war fighting in space now. That is true from a certain perspective, but what that means, I think often gets misconstrued in the public domain. To the military, having a warfighter mentality, a warfighter perspective, it means the way you look at problems and sort of how you approach when something goes wrong, when you have an anomaly, the process you go through to think about how to resolve those, that you're sort of building systems that where you expect there to be interference, you expect things to be other, an adversary to be dealing with it. It doesn't mean you're necessarily going out and killing people. And I think that is an often thing that gets misconstrued. So I think part of this is sort of either doing a better job of explaining what's going on or in some cases even modifying some of the language. The last piece I'll just say is, also we think there needs to be a firm, a clarification of the division of labor between NASA and the space force. NASA is going to be focused on science. It's going to be focused on human spaceflight, on exploration, all good things. The space force is going to be focused on military activities, security activities, base domain awareness. And I think the Biden administration can do a lot to clarify that separation because there's been some messaging that is signaled to maybe that those things are blurring together and we should try and do what we can to keep those separate. So the space force is obviously going to talk priority for the president, I want to turn to another of the president's signature space missions, which is the Artemis mission to return humans to the moon. Ian, I'd like to start with you on this one. What do you recommend President-elect Biden do to sort of keep the momentum going? The funding hasn't necessarily come through which I want to ask about a little bit later, but this is definitely something that people are talking about to get to the moon in 2024. How do you sort of keep that momentum? Yeah, thank you, Jacqueline. I really appreciate the question. I think this has been a question or some variation on this question has been the most frequent thing that we have heard from our international network at Secure World is, what is the future of the Artemis program? Will the U.S. continue with the Artemis program? And what does that look like? So in our brief, we do discuss the Artemis program. At this juncture, we see the Artemis program and space exploration in general actually having considerable importance for both stability and governance of space exploration and space activities. There's significant governmental, scientific and commercial consensus that's focused on the return to the moon right now. And Artemis, we see is both a reflection of that and a driver for that. So there's a feedback loop there. We do urge the Biden administration to continue with a programmatic focus on lunar activities while being realistic about the timelines on which those activities can be expected to occur. So we see a number of our international partners have made financial and programmatic commitments to Artemis. We would hope that the Biden administration sees as an opportunity to be a stable and valuable partner in the international community and continue to move forward with that program. We're also interested in further discussion around a different aspect of the Artemis program and that is the Artemis Accords, of which we see as a very practical step forward towards the governance of space activities and addressing some real kind of new term and medium term questions we have around the use of lunar resources, safety zones, non-interference, those sorts of things. So we hope that the Biden administration continues discussions around those principles including engaging with nations that are not directly participating in the Artemis program. So we really do look forward to a continuing conversation around how to execute aspects of lunar return on a practical timeline. In terms of what you've been hearing from international partners, has the Artemis program, has it happened for long enough and moved forward long enough that if it were to stop, international partners would sort of be left stranded. They have already made these investments. Yeah, so I think a lot of international partners would be in a very difficult policy position if the program were to be reduced. For instance, Japan has made a significant financial commitment to the program and has also undergone a fairly significant revision to aspects of its basic space law to further enable space exploration. And so that sort of actions is clearly tied to Artemis and it would be difficult, I think cause some difficult questions within the Japanese government to reorient that should things change. I mean, I think similar conditions have been made in Canada, for instance, where a significant commitment has been made to the gateway program. And that is an element of Artemis, that complimentary aspect. And so the feature of that program would be a question within our Canadian allies and it's got a drug of similar examples in places like Italy and Luxembourg as well. So I do think that there have been some fairly significant commitments made and at the governmental level and that also flows down to industry, right? So industry in the US and elsewhere is following along to those commitments. And so there'd be some challenges there, yes. So the Biden administration can keep pushing for this, but they cannot do this alone. They do need buy-in from Capitol Hill, which has so far publicly said that they supported the mission to return to the moon, but has been hesitant to pay for it. In the fiscal 2021 funding bills, lawmakers would provide just one billion for the landing system to return humans to the moon, which is more than $2 billion below what the administration asked for. So what can the Biden administration do with this resistance in Congress and do you think the sentiment on the Hill will change? Yeah, and that's a great question when you talk about the practicability of the timelines, right? Is that there are programmatic aspects, there are technical aspects, but there are political and funding aspects to that. So I think that's at the heart of our core, sorry, at the heart of the core of our recommendation to be realistic about the timelines is communicating when we can expect to see results, the funding necessary to achieve those results and have that ongoing conversation with Congress. And I think the current administrator has done a decent job of building those relationships and we can continue to work from that. Traditionally, we do see space exploration as sort of a non-partisan issue in Congress where there are divides, but it's not traditionally a long Republican-Democratic divide more has to do with traditional, perhaps state equities or other factors. And so I think that there's a tradition that we can work on to build a bipartisan conversation on that, but it continues to be about, in my viewpoint, being realistic about timelines and execution standpoints and then as well highlighting the international aspect of this and being a good stable partner, I think it's an argument that could be potentially instructive and useful on the Hill as well. I don't know if any of my colleagues have anything to add to that, but that's how I would see that. I wanted to sort of add to what you have for the Hill, but just again to emphasize, you know, one of the things that we find such a positive about the Artemis Accords is that there's a recognition that there are responsibilities for using space and that it needs to be approached in a cooperative, collaborative approach. I mean, that's a viewpoint I think this curve really signs on to and that it's something we would like to see encouraged and so that's what we really feel is to the U.S.'s benefit to continue this attitude and this method of involving how we use space by bringing in international partners and identifying behavior that you wanna see happen and making sure that it does. And that's part of a approach that I would say bleeds in, but say colors, other ways in which the U.S. uses space and it definitely affects how other countries view the United States and our space capabilities and space plans and those of consequences just in general for the international system. So there really are long-term payoffs to contributing to these accords and making sure that they happen. So cautiously optimistic about that. Just one small point to build on that. There's been some criticism that the accords were sort of the U.S. government forcing its position on other governments, which is simply not true. We've talked to people or the governments that have participated in the negotiations and they were collaborative discussions the U.S. had with the existing partners that have all signed on that were changes made to the text as a result of, things brought up by the international partners. And so part one of the accords, which are these core set of principles, really do represent sort of this group, those the group of countries that were involved so far on what they think the principle should be for future space activities. And I think that's a positive sign and we hope that other countries are gonna look at that and engage with the U.S. in discussions and hopefully at least sign on to those general principles, if not part two, which is sort of the actual participation in the ARS program themselves. So we've talked about a lot of the U.S.'s traditional partners in space, Japan and Canada. Are there nations that you think it's sort of low hanging fruit where there's, it's right for cooperation, there's either a diplomatic game or some sort of technological gain or are there any new partners in space who you think could be somewhat easily brought into the Artemis program? Well, go ahead. Yeah. So I'm aware that there are ongoing conversations with other partners. I think there are regions, particularly in Latin America, that there may be nations, Brazil may be a potential partner for conversation around the accords and the program itself. There's some history of participation with Brazil in the International Space Station program in its early days. And then they kind of pulled back and we've seen the U.S. engage with Brazil around potential use of the of the spaceport in Alcantara. So I think Brazil may be one potential opportunity in the Latin American region. And I think other European nations as well are probably looking at it within the context of their own decisions and as well as within ESA. Yeah, I'm just going to say that we already see one non-traditional partner, the UAE, which is already signed on. I think in general, our discussions over the last several years, even before Artemis was announced, there was a lot of interest in the moon. There's a lot of countries that see the next step in their space program as going to the moon because they didn't go there before, right? And it's only a few days away as opposed to Mars is very much a stretch goal when it comes to logistics and infrastructural kinds of things. So there already was a lot of international interest for many countries in participating somehow and going to the moon. And so I think the artist program and the cords are tapping into that. So yes, we expect a lot. And I think it's not just about the low hanging fruit. I think it's about trying to get as broad and international program as possible should be the goal, not just a small group of friends and allies. More broadly beyond just the Artemis cords, though they may be the easiest vehicle for this, do you expect international engagement on space to change under a Biden administration? I've talked to people who see Biden as sort of this deal maker who is going to pursue more collaboration than the Trump administration. Is that Brian, do you wanna start with that? Or are you expecting that? I'd say I hope so. I mean, we talk in our report about, while the substance of some of the Trump administration's face policies is good, a lot of times that substance was marred by divisive rhetoric. And that is what we really hope the Biden administration changes is, for example, the rhetoric with how we approach our traditional allies, NATO and Europe and, you know, not getting bogged down in things like trade wars that are kind of undermining some of that goodwill. So we definitely hope that there is more of a welcoming approach, less divisive rhetoric.  But we think that could be done less divisively than what we saw from the Trump administration. And I think I would add one more element to this, Brian. I mean, I think we all and across the community expect that the Biden administration, Biden-Harris administration to re-engage in a lot of climate-related initiatives. We've already, of course, seen the signal that they plan to rejoin the Paris Agreement. That has been a particularly challenging subject for the US under the outgoing administration. Work has continued, but it's been difficult to talk about it in a broad sense. It's been difficult to engage in a lot of global initiatives around that topic. And there's a clear space aspect of that. So we would expect to see more engagement from the US around that set of activities and issues. Yeah, and then just to add on to that. I mean, the US has some continued interest in working internationally on space. We were part under the Trump administration and previous that we were very active in the United Nations Committee on Peace, Peace is Better Space, where they were able to agree to 21 long-term sustainability guidelines, which talks about best ways in which to ensure that space is usable to an accessible for all over the long term. Secureables are very biased because our director, Peter Martinez, was a working group chair for that. But we feel it's a really positive model, you know? And COPOUS is a consensus-driven organization has 90-plus countries, United States, Russia, China, Iran, all able to come to agreement on this. And so the US agreed to it because it's to our benefit to have these international approaches. And so that won't be changing under the Biden administration. I'm really hoping that actually they will take this mantle and kind of run with it a little bit, but they won't be starting from scratch. They'll be building upon previous efforts there. So you mentioned China and the ability to work with them through things like the UN. Do you, Victoria, do you expect a Biden administration to be more open to any sort of engagement in space with China? You know, that's really tough. The United States has a, shall we say, challenging relationship with China, whether it's on the ground or in space. And we oftentimes don't really know how to handle this competitor. The United States is precluded from doing, I don't know, efforts with China in space, NASA in the White House, unless they report to the FBI, it's called the Wolf Amendment. And so really it's a challenge. And the United States actually has a history of being concerned about China's space plans and I would say overreacting to them and then creating the exact situation that they didn't want to have happen, you know? For example, shutting China out of some of the NASA work has precluded having China as a partner or engagement, which allows China to go off and do their own soft power outreach and use spaces that have that branch to create connections, which may not be to the United States kind of it. So one of the things we recommend in our briefing book is that the United States look at possibly modifying the Wolf Amendment to allow for some early engagement with China, you know, maybe on basic research, science research and development, maybe sharing data on space debris, space of weather, cooperation, that sort of thing, just really kind of building the groundwork for future engagement, recognizing of course that China is a competitor and there are concerns and they're not gonna go away immediately, but we still need to start working on this. And, you know, one of the things we also call for and I'll let my colleague Ian talk a little more with that is a need for learning more about China's plans for their space capabilities and their programs. Yeah, thank you, Victoria and thank you, Jacqueline. I mean, so the question of, do we expect the overall tenor and posture of the relationship to change? I think in general, we would not expect a very significant overall US policy change towards China or even the other way around, but a very significant Chinese policy change towards the US. But we do see, I think, opportunity for more nuance in the conversation and limited engagement and specifically engagement, not necessarily cooperation, but to develop that nuance. And one of the areas where I personally do see that opportunity is around commercial space activities. So we clearly see it in a wave of commercial space activity in the US and there is a wave of, bless you, private sector and quote unquote, commercial activities in China as well, right? By certain measures, China would be the second largest venue for commercial space globally. So we see a competitive relationship, but I don't know that it's necessarily the nuance in how that competitive relationship with the private sector in China will develop. What is the structure of the Chinese space ecosystem? How does quote unquote private aerospace companies in China relate to the state-owned enterprises and back to the central government? What is the role of provincial governments and other authorities within China in the commercial space ecosystem? So we see opportunity to have a dialogue and discussion around the growth of the commercial space sector and learn a little bit more about what that structure looks like. There may even be some shared interests between the US and Chinese private sector space interests including both countries have large activity going on in the development of very large satellite constellations and there are some shared challenges there where we may be able to have a basic conversation around responsible use and best practice there that may be potentially beneficial to both sectors or to both countries. So I think there is limited opportunity for engagement there and definitely need for more understanding and research into that ecosystem and structure. So while the Wolf Amendment doesn't apply to the private sector, are there still a lot of barriers to commercial partnerships between the two countries? Yeah, so commercial partnerships is a tough one when you're talking about US and China, right? There are policy barriers on both sides. There are trust issues on both sides. I mean, you cannot talk about US Chinese relationships in any domain of industry activity without having a discussion around concerns around intellectual property protections and potential theft of intellectual property issues, right? So I think commercial partnerships at least in any sort of large-scale commercial partnerships between the US and China is probably a bridge that's a long way towards being completed. But that doesn't mean that we cannot have exchange around, again, some of the common issues that I mentioned. A little plug for some work that Secure World is doing along with a partner, Kailas Foundation, where in the final stages of finalizing a report on US perceptions of Chinese commercial space. And part of what we found there is that if you read Chinese trade press, there's a lot of discussion of China needs a better regulatory structure for commercial space activities and the US is seen as a leader in that regulatory structure. So there may be a dialogue that can be held there and kind of share some of the norms of behavior and best practice that we in the US would like to see promulgated globally. So an optimistic yet limited assessment there. And so I do wanna go back to sort of what will become of the Wolf Amendment in 2021. And Victoria, sort of, I know you recommend that Congress act on this, but what do you think the chances are that this is something that lawmakers will really have the appetite to deal with next year? Well, while I would like to see some modifications done to the Wolf Amendment and I am hopeful that the next administration will undertake that. Realistically speaking, you know, there's a lot of political capital that need to be expended to modify the Wolf Amendment much less get rid of it, which no one is recommending. And I don't, it's just as easy to say, you know, we've got to be tough on China, we've got to keep an eye on what they're doing on the moon, that sort of thing. That sort of thing plays very well in various circles and national security establishment. And so I think it would take someone who is extremely motivated to change the fundamental nature of the US relationship with China in regards to engaging with them on this. So we'll see, but it's really hard to say at this point. We're, you know, maybe we'll give the administration like a month in office and then we'll ask them again. So are there any things that NASA, you mentioned that it's a burdensome process to go to the FBI, but are there things that NASA can do to sort of extend the olive branch to China even with the Wolf Amendment still in place? Does that really preclude everything? Well, I will say, and my colleagues can jump in here. I can talk all day about this, but, you know, the United States does interact with China on space issues, whether it's in multilateral fora, such as the Conference of Disarmament in the United Nations or the Community and Pieces Outer Space. There's two plus two space security dialogues. So it's not like there's nothing there. So there is a possibility for space discussions being held. And now the question is what can NASA do? I mean, again, I think maybe they could be part of, you know, discussions at the multilateral level and kind of go from there. I don't know, Brian and Ian, if you want to add on to that. Well, I'll just say that, you know, NASA, the administration could go to Congress and make the case on why they think they should engage China on a specific space project or typically like science, you know, physics, something like that. So far, administrations have been unwilling to do that. But I think that is always an option. That's going to require effort. It's going to require a lot of, you know, no one likes to kind of do the, you know, mother, may I, to Congress, but that is always a possibility. So I want to turn to space debris, something you mentioned as a possible area of cooperation with China since both nations do have satellites in orbit. This is an area where the Trump administration has actually tried to take action, but any sort of changes have been bogged down by Congress. So, Brian, I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about what the incoming Biden administration can do to try to take action on orbital debris if gridlock continues on the hill. Yeah, and let me expand that a bit. I'm going to talk about sort of a lot of things wrapped together. You've got how to deal with orbital debris. You've got space situational awareness, which is keeping track of what's in space. And then space traffic management, which is sort of all of that plus oversight of future commercial activities. All that is sort of tied together. You know, the Obama administration started several efforts on all three of those things. Some of them sort of got publicized. Some of them did not. The Trump administration continued quite a lot of that. I think the most public thing we saw was Space Policy Directive 3 issued in June 2018 by the Trump administration on space traffic management that, you know, essentially tried to put the office-based commerce and the Department of Commerce forward as sort of the central coordinator for a lot of these things. Quite a lot of that substance, SBD-3, is good. And it reflects things that were already sort of underway in the Obama administration. The challenge, as you pointed out, is that Congress has not stepped up to give Department of Commerce those new authorities nor the additional budget. So that's the real issue there. And from us, you know, our message is sort of stop arguing about where to put it, transportation, commerce, and just do it, right? We are well past the time we should have made these decisions. There's, you know, Space Starlink has put up over a thousand satellites already in the first of what are probably gonna be several large constellations. There's a growing amount of CubeSat activity, lots of growing concerns about increased congestion in space, the possibility for collisions, the added burden this puts on operators to kind of keep track of all this and avoid things. We need a federal agency that is involved in all this and is leading on this. The time to do that is now. And so this is partly the administration, my administration needs to sort of not deviate and go back to a whole reset and another several years argue know who to do it. You know, work on implementation. Work with Congress on getting this past and getting these things done. And then put the US back in the driver's seat in terms of being an international leader on advancing debris mitigation guidelines, on improving SSA data sharing and on laying the groundwork for a huge space traffic management regime. You mentioned Space Starlink, the super large constellations that are going up. Given the rise of this, is this something that Biden will have to deal with over the next four years? Is this something that because of these mega constellations really just can't be pushed out any farther? Oh, absolutely. And I said, it should have been dealt with five, 10 years ago, right? That's when we should have actually put this stuff in place. But we spent all this time arguing and kind of debating and going back and forth. So they're already launching, they're already up there. And so yes, the oversight, you know, governments regulatory methods for how we're going to deal with these need to be put in place. And, you know, something that Biden administration absolutely has to do, but in working with Congress, right? A lot of the stuff they can't just do by themselves on the executive side.  If you're looking at all the satellites that have been proposed to the FTC for being launched the next 10 years, that could be 107,000 satellites.  Some of these are very theoretical. But a good chunk of them are going to be launched. And so you're right, Jacqueline. I mean, this is something, it's not a theoretical construct. These things are happening now. They're being launched now. They're creating issues now. We don't have the luxury of time anymore. They need to start working on policies to work on coordination of this before some sort of crisis forces the hand. And just to add one more level. I mean, I think we have to recognize that this is not a single regulatory solution, right? It's take the steps now that we know that we need to take, continue to research and refine our understanding, better understand the business imperative, better understand the operational realities. And we're going to have to update and refine regulation. And that's a process that I think we're all gonna have to become comfortable with. And it's a process that is beneficial and that actually allows industry practice and the standards to be incorporated in a regulatory process. So just, I think we need to be upfront that this is not a single, here's the regulation, we're done, right? This is gonna continue to evolve. So a lot of the things we've talked about so far today have been things that you say, the Biden administration will have to go and make the case to Congress. In the Trump administration, Trump has been very pro-space, Pence has had this leadership role in the National Space Council. Who do you sort of see being that person that goes and makes the case for these things in a Biden administration, given that Biden so far hasn't been kind of out front talking a lot about these issues? Does this fall to the NASA administrator? Who is the person who can kind of take this over? Well, it's a great question. I think it's one that's really important. So, we have seen very publicly that Trump just brought back the National Space Council, which I think has served an important role in highlighting some of the, bringing some more public attention to a lot of these issues, but also bringing more inter-agency attention to these issues. There's something to be said for having, the heads of all these federal agencies and departments having to get on stage every few months to talk about their progress on implementing policy and addressing some of these issues. That's sort of a forcing function within the bureaucracy to kind of drive implementation. I think it's important. But this is, where do we go from here is an important question. I think the Biden administration has shown that its priorities are on recovering from COVID, on improving the economy, bringing back to millions of jobs that have been lost, dealing with climate change, diversity, inclusion. I think space can play a role in all of those, but space is not first and foremost on their issues. I think it's partly it's up to the space community to try and make the cases to why space is important, how space can help address a lot of those priorities for the Biden-Harris administration. And then why it's important to continue some of these things. That's sort of one of the big reasons that we're putting out this issue briefing. We hope the space council continues. We think it has served a positive function, whether it's led by the vice president or maybe even the president going forward because it is POTUS that leads the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, the National, sorry, the Homeland Security Council, all these other high level interagency councils led by the president. So I think that's something we should consider as an option. Anyways, we hope it continues. That said, there are a couple of changes we would like to see made. One is on the user's advisory group. We think it's great that there is a group of outside of government entities advising on these issues. We think some work could be done to make that a little more representative of the actual users of space and not just companies that are, in some cases, trying to get government contracts, so making it more focused on user-friendly could be a good step. And then there's also this issue of some of these space council meetings tend to be a little bit more of a political performance than a substantive discussion of the issues. Some of that is politics, but again, we think there could be efforts made to help, again, focus more on a public discussion of some of the substantive issues that need to be dealt with. So kind of following up on the fact that you are recommending that Biden keeps the National Space Council, what will be the practical impact if that goes away? Is it really just sort of the visual of having everyone together or is there policy that will fall by the wayside if that goes away? Well, it's a great question. We made very important and meaningful space policy decisions without the space council during the Clinton administration, the Bush administration, the Obama administration. So it is not the space council is necessary to make good policy. A lot of that depends upon then what happens with the staffing of the National Security Council or the Office of Science Technology Policy, which are the two places where space policy has traditionally been led when there was not a national space council. So that still could happen. I think the damage will be the public perception of these activities. Most people don't know what OSTP is, let alone that they co-chaired a lot of the space policy decisions in the Clinton administration and the Obama administration. So I think it'll be harder to sort of get that public awareness and sort of public engagement on these issues if the space council goes away and it sort of reverts back to sort of more down in the bureaucracy, less visible entities that are running the process. But it will still continue. And one of the big questions is whether or not we've had any better space policy decisions or not with the space council. That's a question for academics in the future. And there's also the issue of implementation, right? If there's less public attention, is maybe implementation gonna fall off a little bit. So you sort of touched on this, but I would like all three of you to weigh in on sort of how to maintain this high level of space amid very high unemployment and a slow economy and more than 250,000 people killed by this virus. We have talked today about so many things that require urgent attention, but there's just so much else going on in the world. So how do you focus on space amid everything? Victoria, would you like to start and then we'll go to all three of you? Sure. I mean, yes, there are a lot of priorities that are really pressing. This is a rough time for everyone. I think that everyone acknowledges that. Just that space is a key enabler for national security is a key enabler for the economy. It's a key enabler for our society function. So it is almost like the glue that holds a lot of this together. And so much like glue, it's not really visible to the outside, but it is there and it is needed. So that's where we make the argument that obviously there's a bit of triage going on clearly, but this is something that shouldn't be overlooked. It is really important and needs to be incorporated to make sure it's accessible to and usable for us over the long term. It's to the US long-term national interest to focus on this. Brian, would you like to address that next? Yeah, I think part of this is recognizing that the US government can do a lot of things at once. So yes, we should be focused on those issues you address. Those are really pressing national challenges, but there's lots of other people that can also be focusing on space and also how space can help address those. We often hear a lot about the role spaces in the economy and driving jobs. In some cases that has been a little more flash than bang, right? Not quite as much substance. I think a lot more could be worked on how to truly make space industry an economic driver and job creator that especially down at the state level, the regional level, I think there's a lot of work that could be done there. And then also by putting in place good people, right? A lot of this, to quote the current executive second space council, people matter a lot in the process of making space policy. So I think a lot will hinge on who the by-administration puts into key places, Department of Commerce, foreign transportation, NASA administrator, national space council or national security council, Office of Science Technology Policy. Those are really important jobs. Ian, do you have anything to add there? Yeah, so following my two colleagues that they leave me a tough job to add in the additional color to that. But from where I sit, the space industry has actually weathered the pandemic fairly well thus far, right? We've seen business activity has continued, programmatic activity has continued, investment activity has continued. So I think part of the answer to this is the space industry just needs to continue to communicate. We've done, we're approaching forward and we're continuing with success and let's keep building upon that and not find disruption where it doesn't necessarily exist. So I think that's a message that our community needs to take upon itself to do is just to communicate the continued momentum that we have. I also think there's an opportunity here in this again, maybe a little bit with optimistic glasses on, but we have examples of success where space shows us that in the US system, we can get things done in a bipartisan or in a nonpartisan passion. So the fanfare around the SpaceX crew flights this year, that is a program that has a history of across three administrations almost, right? And that is an example of how space can be used to drive activity, drive success that does not involve necessarily the vitriol of some of the partisan fights that we see, right? And I think that, you know, as the Biden administration tries to work with Congress to address some of these massive challenges that it's facing, finding an area where there can be bipartisan or nonpartisan cooperation is gonna be important. So I think space has a role to play there. So I am getting ready to turn to audience questions soon. So get those in if you haven't, it looks like we already have a bunch of good ones there. But before we do this, it is obvious in reading the report that you guys put so much time and effort into it. So I just wanna give each of you the opportunity to share sort of any highlights or anything from the report that I didn't ask you about that you really wanna put out there if you have, you know, a favorite noviator or some really important theme that we haven't gotten to highlight yet here today. We can start with Brian. You know, I think I would just re-emphasize sort of one of our core points, which is don't reset the clock on a lot of these, you know, keep the substance that was meaningful, that has been developed across a couple of different administrations, focus on sort of continuing the progress, focus on implementation and what needs to be fixed is sort of the divisive rhetoric and some of the political aspects of some of these things. I would just add really quickly in our national security chapter, we talk about the need to really redefine what we mean for space deterrence. What are we actually trying to accomplish? There is a vocal minority that seems to think it's threat of reprisal via offensive counter space weapons and that definitely needs to be debunked. We need to really think the, okay, what are we trying to deter? Who are we trying to deter? And how are we planning on doing that? And how do we really wanna get to resiliency to really rethink how we approach those sort of things because what we've been doing has not, well, we've been talking about it for over a decade now, but not really come to any sort of decision-making process the way that we can implement what Brian recommended. And, you know, for me, I just, first off, I wanna, you know, it's Brian Victoria and I in this college, I just wanna thank the rest of the colleagues at Secure World that also contributed to this brief, Chris Johnson and Crystal Hazelton, Peter Martinez, Daniel Parris and then our operations team as well. So just again, thanks to the colleagues. It's not just the three of us, of course, that wrote this. I think, topically, one thing that is a thread throughout the brief and we do a specific chapter on it, but it's throughout is just the role that diplomacy and international engagement and, you know, the role of other agencies outside of, you know, commerce and NASA can play in supporting all of these initiatives and doing it at a global level, right? Spaces as space becomes more important from a security standpoint, from an economic standpoint, it becomes more important from a diplomatic standpoint and there's an important thread there to pay attention to as well. So I think that is something I'd wanna emphasize here. So we have one audience question. We've talked a lot about the language that Trump administration uses around space and just the fact that the Pentagon has gotten way more open, calling space a warfighting domain and talking about threats in space. This question says, since the Trump administration introduced the warfighting domain term, should the Biden administration simply retire it? Yeah, that's a great question. So first I'll say, you know, the Trump administration was the first US administration to talk about that publicly and refer to space public as a warfighting domain, but internally, US government had thought about space as a warfighting domain long before the Trump administration came along and that terminology of a warfighting domain has a specific meaning within the US military. So I don't think we can change and say that space is not a warfighting domain from the military's perspective it is. I think that first we need to stop using that every 30 seconds as the only thing we'll refer to space as, particularly from a military standpoint. And second, do a better job explaining what that means. Again, it has to do more about the mindset you have when dealing with challenges, when dealing with anomalies and when building systems rather than looking to go out and actually break things and blow things up. So I would say, do better job educating what we mean by that and just stop using it as the only way we talk about space which seems to be what's happening for the last couple of years. Right, and that builds a larger conversation. Space has a national security element to it. There's no getting around that. It's for the United States, but it's not just United States or other countries as well. I mean, just within the past year or so, we saw both France and Japan stand up their version of the Space Force or a version of the Space Force. Kingdom has expressed interest in this. So NATO has declared an operational domain. So I think the momentum has already been established that space is being used in national security enabler. But as Brian said, I think it's important to really agree, Jigger, how the United States refers to it and it's helpful when you don't have a leader you're proclaiming, make America great and kind of leading the rhetoric in terms of that emphasis, the United States is gonna be the dominant actor to the detriment of anyone else. I think it's part of overall an approach that is perhaps better defined as being more cooperative. And I think we'll actually do more to further US national security goals and hopes and dreams as opposed to just continuing with the same tired rhetoric. We have another question here. We have talked a lot today about future partnerships with China and what that's gonna look like, but what is the future of cooperation in space with Russia and India? Well, I can take first crack at that if my colleagues can jump in. I always feel like I start off by saying it's complicated but it is complicated. I mean, the US and Russia obviously have decades of competition in terms of space but also decades of cooperation. You see the International Space Station has been active for over two decades now. And so there is kind of a turning point in terms of how we are gonna be approaching space together as well. So I think we'll be figuring out where we wanna move ahead with space superpowers as well because there's counter space capabilities together. India as a particular interest of mine, India has really evolved how the approach space used to be used for socially economic development and over the past decade or so has evolved to have a more military component. And that's I think in line with how a lot of countries are recruiting space, so it's not a typical. But of course, India was the fourth country to launch an anti-satellite test in 2019 and has also stood up its version or starting to think about its own version of a space agency, a defense space agency without actually publishing a national space policy or really giving any indication as to what their priorities or goals are for their mission, for their space capabilities. So I think that does make it complicated to figure out how can we cooperate together two major space powers when we don't know where one of them is actually going? So that would be my recommendation that India start to think about that. And also India started to invest in its own space distribution awareness capabilities which may be a possibility for cooperation as a partner later on. I'll stop there. Quickly, I don't know that. I mean, Russia is complicated, you know, in some ways actually the US relationship and multilateral fora with China is better than Russia at the moment. It's been the Russians that have sort of been one of the main antagonists for some of the recent diplomatic discussions on space, at least from a US perspective and not China. So that's really, really difficult. My sense is that when the ISS partnership ends, we're probably gonna be in a much different place with Russia, it's gonna be much more difficult to sort of come up with a bilateral cooperation. That doesn't mean we can't try, we shouldn't try. Again, as I said, part of the value of the Artemis Accords is getting, you know, sort of a growing group of countries, perhaps at some point in the future reaching consensus on certain interpretations of international legal principles. So the more a country can bring into that, I think the better it will be, particularly some of the major space-faring countries, India, you mentioned Brazil earlier, hopefully even China, Russia.  I would say India would be a very prime example of that type of country, right? Where it's very significant space capabilities, very significant engagement at the multilateral level in certain ways and kind of non-aligned in terms of space exploration activities. So I was gonna raise that example. The other place I think that there is opportunity for engagement cooperation with India in particular to a lesser extent, China, but to a host of other countries is just development of regulatory frameworks and practices for commercial space. So in the last year, we've seen India kind of liberalize in a way its regulatory scheme to enable a broader private sector role in space activities. I think there's a opportunity for the US to lead a dialogue with nations around, you know, how we need to have some commonality in the regulation of space activities. So I think that might be an opportunity there as well. Maybe not as exciting as some of the other ones, but important in other ways. We have a space sustainability question. We've talked about Biden's focus on climate change. Are you expecting a Biden administration to see space sustainability as an extension of Earth sustainability initiatives and make that a priority as a result? So I'll start, you know, I don't think there's gonna be like a formal marrying, let's say including space in sort of climate change discussions, but I do hope that some of the conceptual frameworks for how we think about dealing with a changing environment and sustainable development do flow over to the space world. There's been a lot of discussions, you know, in the terrestrial world about these problems and these issues and many that have parallels to space. So I think there's sort of a, almost be borrowing some of the intellectual framework and some of the intellectual discussions and the thoughts on mechanisms and how to do some of these things from the terrestrial environmental discussion to space. I think that would be a big benefit for the space world. And then also, of course, reinforcing the message that part of the reason we should care about space sustainability is that satellites and space data is one of the big tools we have for knowing what's happening in the world and understanding the changing environment and managing things like changing climate, natural disasters and sustainable development. I would like to add, I mean, I agree with Brian, I think it'd be very helpful to pick up some of the intellectual framework and the heavy lifting that's already been done for climate discussions and see how it's appropriate for space environmental management. It is something we talk about the need for that. But also, let me let's be honest, climate change has become a very partisan issue. It's become very political. And right now in terms of space debris, that's not really a political issue. So I would encourage us to try and keep it that way just because it literally is global and it affects everyone. Republican Democrat, emerging space entry, established space power, that sort of thing. And so it really behooves us to have a cooperative approach as a political one as is possible in the world we live in. Another question sort of sustainability focused about mining the moon and mining asteroids. If you're expecting the incoming Biden administration to pull back a little on the emphasis on collecting resources in space that the Trump administration has had. So I'll start with this.  So the commercial use of resources or the legality of that is that's actually longstanding US policy that that is permitted. What we would like to see is a little more realism around the economics argument and economic discussion of that and the timeline and some movement away from some of the, again, the divisive language around thing declaring like space is not a global commons. So we expect that the US will continue to have an interest in space resources utilization, expect to have an interest in promoting commercial space resources utilization, indeed to have sustained space exploration activities involving humans, you have to have some level of space resources utilization. So expect that to continue, expect the US to engage that but we do hope to see both more less divisive diplomatic language and a better economic understanding of the timing and nature of those activities. I mean, if I may be blunt, I mean, just building up Ian's point about less divisive language. I mean, you hear a lot of discussion in a few circles about the moon being the ultimate hagron and how suddenly, we need to be worried about China's approach to sizzling orbits and they'll park something up there. First of all, the moon is a satellite earth so it circles around. So I mean, the utility of it for some stuff is not really merited by some of the arguments but it really does benefit to try to think about, okay, how do we want to purchase sort of thinking? And as Ian said, the rhetoric has not been helpful and in fact oftentimes becomes self-reinforcing. You see the United States saying things about China's presumed plans for the moon and then that feeds into a race of rhetoric that has not been helpful for international cooperation on these issues. Just to add to that, I think it's pretty interesting to Ian's point exactly the right that US policies hasn't changed but the public perception of that policy has in part because maybe a lot of people didn't know that was US policy before Trump started talking about it but also because they sort of, their perception of what that policy means is colored by Trump's other attitudes and actions and sort of opinion. So that's what we're trying to get to here is trying to at least, what are the possible separate the substance from the politics and the perception? I think one area that we do need to do is to, the US needs to ensure that there are continued multilateral discussions on these issues with a range of viewpoints in places like UN copious because, there's still a lot of unsettled legal questions for how to practically do a lot of these things. Even if we get a degree that yes, it is possible to extract some resources without having deed of ownership to the land. What does that mean? What are the limits? How do we oversight of that? What are the article six implications? There's still a lot of work to be done on that. So this next question is, is there a way to create a commercial space equivalent of the Artemis Accords? And if so, would that be a way to engage with China? Ian, do you wanna start on that one? I'm gonna steal a line from Victoria. That is a challenging question. As I think about it. I mean, so a commercial space equivalent of the Artemis Accord. So that would be maybe a thing to think with that through that. That would be maybe a set of best practices or standards through which commercial companies agree that they will operate on in the lunar context or in any other context. I think that's theoretically possible. I mean, it suffers from many of the same barriers that we talked about in terms of commercial partnerships between the US and China, right? The same trust issues, the same concerns around IP, those sorts of things. But the international standards process is something that exists and does work well. Brian and I have worked with 41 companies around standards for best standards for on-orbit servicing. And that has gone to the International Standards Organization. And I believe Brian that there's been some engagement with the Chinese representatives to that delegation once it's moved beyond us. So that is theoretically possible. I think it's gonna be a pretty heavy lift though, especially in the lunar context. Yeah, so it's interesting. We've already seen a couple of incidents of the commercial industry getting together and putting out their own sort of best practice or guidelines. So recent one was the Space Safety Coalition, which is a group of roughly 40 organizations, mostly sat at operators. Secure World's also a part of this who have all sort of signed on to a set of operating best practices mostly around, how to operate a satellite or through mitigation, end of life practices for Earth orbit that go above and beyond what is technically required by governments under licensing. So that's an example of industry getting together and sort of setting their own guidelines because they think it's in their own best interests. It's certainly possible to see that happen for Cislin or activities. I think for right now the challenge is though that almost all these systems that I'm aware of are being done by government funding or part of a government program. So we're not there to always see completely independent commercial activities happening on the moon. I think we probably have time for one more audience question. Will Biden be looking for a signature space item during his presidency the same way that Trump pursued the Space Force in the 2024 Moon Goal? And if so, what do you think it would be for Biden? I guess I'll start. I honestly don't think so. Again, given the priorities that have been laid out as we talked about earlier, there are huge pressing national issues with COVID recovery, with the economy, dealing with other issues that are gonna draw his attention. I think that is probably where his attention is focused. But I think that's really a bad thing for the space world. One of the downside to having a top-level political leader personally involved in space is then the issues and programs become tied to that political leader, and that introduces the element of partisanship. And that's what we're talking about right now. If there's easily could have been a chance where a lot of these same space policy issues happened without Trump being so personally attached to them, I think there would have been less of a concern about whether we can keep them or not. So I'm not convinced that always having top political leaders personally involved is a good thing. It can help, but also can bring some other challenges with it. So at the end, I think, look, I hope the Biden administration as a whole continues these policies and furthers them in several cases that we've talked about in terms of the implementation, so that, because it's all about the United States as a whole, it's not about one specific politician. Yeah, I'd mostly agree with that. I would say that I think the Biden administration is going to look for signature achievements in the climate change and re-engagement there. And there's a space element to that that connects, but it won't be a space focused initiative in and of itself, right? So I think that exists, but I would agree that it's not necessarily a negative for there not to be a core presidential focus in terms of a must have achievement in the sector. It's such a window to continue with existing momentum. I'm going to use this opportunity to disagree with my colleagues. I actually think, I mean, every administration likes to have some stamp they can point out, say this is what we did in space, you know, we had, we were going to go to the moon, no, we're going to go to an asteroid, no, we're going to go back to the moon and we're going to go to Mars. I mean, it's nice to have an end goal. And so I think that Biden administration will not be any different, that they will have some sort of focused discussion about what they want to achieve in space. But, you know, I do agree that this incoming administration is not quite as likely to put a self and grandizing twist to a lot of this sort of thing. And that's what I think honestly tainted a lot of what happened in the current administration and their space capabilities. So I'm hoping that we'll have a more collaborative, cooperative approach to their space, to the US space program. Well, great. We are out of time for today, but thank you to Brian Ian and Victoria for this super insightful discussion. And thank you to everyone watching at home. I really hope you enjoyed the conversation. It, I mean, it just seems like the Biden administration has a long to-do list for space over the next four years. And we will definitely be watching and staying on top of how they tackle all these issues. If you missed any bits of today's panel or want to go back and check or recording and then transcript of the event will be posted online soon. So thank you again and have a great afternoon.


Governor of Zamfara stayed Bailu Mata while he defected from the People's Democratic Party PDP, so he all progressive congress APC in June 2021, living behind his deputy governor in the PDP. Since then, the PDP has insisted by the reason of his defection that the governor should vacate his office and that the deputy governor should take his place. They have backed this demand with a court action to enforce same. However, the publicity secretary of the People's Democratic Party, Kola Olubudio, has called on the deputy governor to forcefully take over the seat of the governor. In the press release, he berated the Nigeria police for resisting the violence and forceful attempt by the deputy governor to take over the seat. Well, joining us to discuss this is Diron Odeemi. He is the Deputy Publicity Secretary of the People's Democratic Party and James Ibor, who is a legal practitioner. Thank you gentlemen for joining us. Thank you. I'm going to start with you, James, because of course this is a legal matter and everybody is wondering how this is supposedly to play out.  Why do you think the PDP is so insistent on Mata Wali vacating his seat? Honestly, I have reviewed the press statement and it is very strange and it shows desperation on the part of PDP because the position they are pushing is not just illegal, it is criminal because the constitution is very clear about taking over the post of the governor of any state in Nigeria. And I wonder why the PDP as a party will prove such a very flagrant disregard to our constitution by even advising or urging the deputy governor to take over office forcefully. It is strange, it is desperate and very unfortunate. I actually would call itself to order because it cannot, at the stage of our constitutional democracy, begin to advise on a forceful taking over of office. And I must also commend the Nigerian police force for refusing to take that illegal order. Let me ask about the debate and I hope that we can get Darrell back on so we can ask him the same question. The debate about who is voted into power, is it the party, is it the person who is the flag bearer? Because this has been a debate that has gone on for so long. I mean, and we know that during elections what you see on the ballot paper is the logo of the political party and not the person's face. So really on this basis, the PDP does have an argument, don't they? It is the party's platform that brought Bello Matawale into, you know, and we know the circumstances that surrounded Governor Matawale becoming governor because of the disqualification of the APC. So on this basis, looking at it from a legal perspective and not a political perspective, does the PDP not have some form of, do they not have a reason to go to court on this matter? Yes, I think the PDP has a moral debate or argument but not the legal argument. The reason is very clear. If you look at it, it's also the same position when you're talking about PDP in cross-vasted and APC. Governor Ben-Nedi Tayade became a governor under the platform of PDP. Remember, it is not in contention that it is the political parties that is the vehicle to ascending to the office of the governor or president. But that now is standing. The constitution is very clear. In fact, section 180 and 188 and 189, the combined effect of these provisions of the law clearly states on the post-video for season to be a governor or a president. The process is very clear unambiguously and this has also further been confirmed by the Supreme Court. I remember at the time when Artico defected to AC. And there was this running battle between the president because Artico was looking for a platform to challenge his boss in the polls and he defected to AC. And the president declared his position back and it was a legal issue that went up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court clearly says then and again that it is not known to law that the fact of defection will make you to lose the position you're already occupying either as president or vice president. So in as much as I agree that yes, the position is that of the party but defecting to another party, it is sad. It's unfortunate. The constitution never may be... I think the constitution even contemplated it because if you look at section 68 and section 109 of the constitution, it makes reference to national assembly, the legislative house of the national assembly or the state has this of assembly and it was very expressed that if you defect you lose your seat unless you can show that there is a split in your own political party. So I think it may not even be correct to say the constitution is a lacuna. It is not. It is the intention of the constitution that that provisions only apply to legislative houses of either the national assembly or that of the state, not for governors. Okay, let me go to Duran. Mr. Naomi, you obviously I think we have talked about this briefly when Governor Matawhale initially defected but then the message that you're that Mr. Kola Lobodino had put out asking the deputy to take over, isn't that an illegal you know statement? Again, you have a case that you say you want to take to court and you're going to pursue it to the highest court. But asking that a deputy governor forcefully take over the seat of a governor, isn't that a call for anarchy or trouble in a state? I'm not sure you have the statement made by Kola Lobodino. Oh, I did look at it. If you have the statement, this question will not arrive. Simply because Kola did not make such a statement at all. And there is nothing that if the governor decides to join another political party and the deputy governor decides to stay with the party. And what we are saying as a political party is that since the deputy is used to go with the governor, then the automatically the deputy governor becomes the leader of the party and he should take over the affairs of PPP, nothing more than that. If you have anything contrary, that is if you think what Kola has done is to call for crisis in San Francisco, I think what they should do is just to call the police of you to take him to court. So again, I'm repeating this, if you have the statement of what Kola made, it's not about deputy governor taking over the administration of San Francisco. Let's talk about the well, the courts also has one way or the other stopped the impeachment of the deputy governor, which a lot of political pundits had seen coming. In fact, people predicted that in no time the deputy governor may be impeached. And of course, it also stopped some members who are still with the PDP in the House of Assembly from being impeached. So I'd like to ask you as a party man, why is it so difficult or why is it becoming a norm that if a governor of a state decides to move to one party, every person, whether members of his executive, even the House of Assembly is forced to change to that party. And then there's never really room for the opposition, no matter how minority, how many, how small the number they are, there's always that problem of wanting to impeach them. What does the party manifesto say about that? Oh, the party constitution, I beg your pardon, say about, you know, coexisting as parties, you know, in a state, no matter how small in number the opposition is. Why is there that forceful nature of wanting to get everybody to one side? Sanfara State is a very complex and difficult one. And it is, in fact, a special case, which is why PDP decided to test the matter in the Supreme Court. The situation is, it's because I want the position to PDP and agreed that after the time it was given to PDP, everything was not in existence. That is, it is in no context that relation at all. So if the Matawale now decided to take that mandate to another political party, what we are saying is there is no political party for him to take it, because they were not in that election. And don't forget, we have an elected department in PDP that looked into this and advised that, yes, we have a solid case to contest with. Now, I've been saying that it is a difficult thing if the House of Assembly now decides to repeal the deputy governor, simply because he refused to follow Matawale to APC. Very, very difficult. And the best thing, a responsible party we do is to contact the courts that can be done, and since the court has ruled that they have, the House of Assembly cannot impeach him. So it is. That is the situation. So get about the political aspect of it, but talk about the moral aspect of it. Is it compulsory that everybody must follow you to APC? No. Talking about the morality of it, why is there so much pressure on the governor, but then why is the same amount of pressure not mounted on the members of the House of Assembly where the constitution actually does apply? The issue is, before you can impeach the deputy governor, you must out to your reasoning. You cannot impeach the deputy governor simply because he refused to follow the governor to another political party. And that is the grouse, and that is the issue here. Even if you are telling the House of Assembly decides to impeach him, there's no problem about that, but there must be concrete offence or allegation against the not base of political situation that is yet to be restored at the Supreme Court. Well, unfortunately, we're out of time because I would like to pressure you more on what the PDP plans are in the future. Because if the PDP does not win in court over this matter, what will be your next line of action? We are, our next line of action is to take matter, which we have done already as a political party. And if you do not win? Yeah, it is, it is that we let the court decide. And that is why, because people don't know they are right in this country. If they know they are right, they have a situation whereby you put everything before the court for them to decide whether it is right or wrong. And that is exactly what we are doing as a political party. We don't have to resort to order these, order them to go to the judiciary. Well, Dural Dayemi is the deputy national publicity secretary of the People's Democratic Party. James Ibo is a legal practitioner, and I want to thank you gentlemen for being part of the conversation. We have to go now. Thank you very much. All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us. We'll take a quick break and when we come back, I will give you my take. It's going to be really short. Stay with us. Here's my take. As a member of the fourth estate of the realm in this country, our duty is very simple and straightforward. We are supposed to put our leaders on their toes. We're supposed to report with our fear of favour. We should not be oppressed in any way. And of course, come on. If we live in a country where we're asking that we have freedom of the press or we're asking that the press be unbiased, give them freedom to report and let them give them access to information. We ask questions and some answers never get given to us. We never get those answers. We go to the army for figures. I remember in 2018, 2017, the numbers that were coming from the army was totally different from the numbers. I mean, it was just a misinformation galore. Allow us to do our jobs. NBC, please let us do our jobs. Dear government, allow the media to do its job. If we have good stories to report, we will report them. If the government does great, we will report it. If something bad is going on, we will report it. There has to be reportage. One way or the other, we will play down on the sentiments of trying to make the terrorists look bad, but let us do our job by saying no to God's orders. I am Marianne Cohn. Thank you for watching.