(COLORADO) — Colorado Senator Michael Bennet spoke on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Feb. 15 delivering an impassioned plea to President Joe Biden not to ratify the decision to move Space Command from Colorado.

Bennet spoke on his experience in getting briefings from the intelligence community. He said, “I can tell you that I have found these briefings very sobering over the years, and I’d be surprised if there isn’t a single member of the Senate who doesn’t feel the same way I do.”

The senator expressed regret that the Chinese have been enabled to steal technology that has progressed what he called the space race. Bennet used this to launch into the plea to keep Space Command in Colorado as it has been for years.

“I’m not going to bore you, Mr. President, with one of the saddest stories I know about a process run completely awry that resulted in the top generals in the Air Force walking into the White House with a recommendation that said we ought to leave Space Command in Colorado… And instead, President Trump overturned their recommendation,” Bennet stated.

He went over the reasons that have previously been given to keep Space Command in Colorado: Operational capability timeline, the cost efficiency of staying put, and attrition rates. Bennet shared that his concern over the decision has only grown since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Bennet called out Trump’s decision, “A decision that was made in the face of the recommendations of the generals, a decision that was belied by all of the relevant facts, and a decision that the GAO, the DOD’s own Inspector General, and Donald Trump on a radio program all confirmed, which is that politics made the decision about moving Space Command to Alabama, not the national security interest of the United States.”

Bennet admitted his own interest, being from Colorado, in keeping Space Command where it has called home. He made a point to clarify that his bigger interest was the national security ramifications of moving and thus delaying the full operational capabilities of Space Command. He encouraged President Biden to make a decision on this based on facts, not politics.

The Biden administration has the opportunity to restore the integrity of this process… They will find that Space Command belongs in Colorado and shouldn’t be moved anywhere else… I’m on the floor today to remind people here of the importance of this issue, the urgency of this issue, not just for Colorado, not even for Colorado, but for the country as a whole and for our national security as a whole. This is a decision that should be made in the interest of the national security of the United States of America.

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet