U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody met with aerospace employees Wednesday at Honeywell Aerospace in Clearwater to address Florida’s role in American space exploration and outline ongoing legislative efforts targeting workforce development.
The townhall focused on state-level aerospace production and federal measures designed to fund launch infrastructure and technical job training. Honeywell’s Clearwater facility contributed components to NASA’s Orion spacecraft, supporting the Artemis II lunar flyby mission that flew four astronauts around the Moon.
“In the interest of national security, America must remain the world’s leader in space, and Florida is center stage,” Moody said during the event. “That is why strengthening our state’s space industry is one of my priorities in the Senate, and why I continue fighting for resources to support Florida space operations and to help increase the skilled workforce needed to keep us shooting for the stars.”
Launch activity along Florida’s Space Coast has expanded by more than 500 percent since 2016. In Washington, Moody has backed several policy measures targeting commercial and civil space operations, including the Secure U.S. Leadership in Space Act, which granted tax-exempt status to spaceport facility bonds to place spaceports on equal tax footing with commercial airports and seaports.
Her latest space proposal, the Space Ready 2.0 Act, would set up a NASA-wide pilot initiative letting the agency accept voluntary donations from private firms to finance infrastructure upgrades at NASA centers. The measure relies on NASA’s existing authorities rather than authorizing new federal appropriations or establishing distinct Treasury funds. Moody also introduced the CAPE Canaveral Act, which seeks to transfer NASA’s official headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Florida’s Space Coast.
Alongside industry-specific space policies, the discussion turned to domestic labor shortages. Moody outlined the TRADES Act, a legislative proposal aimed at boosting skilled labor pipelines. The bill would raise existing taxes on high-end university endowments to mirror the capital gains tax rates applied to individual investment income.
Revenue generated under the bill would flow into federal Perkins Career and Technical Education grants, the government’s primary channel for supporting vocational and trade training. The Perkins grant program currently serves roughly 12 million students nationwide. A growing coalition of trade associations and industry groups has endorsed the measure in recent weeks.
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