On Aug. 30, Texas A&M leaders joined with community representative and legislators — including state Rep. Greg Bonnen ’88 and state Sen. Mayes Middleton — to break ground on infrastructure improvements. These improvements are the first step toward the Texas A&M Maritime Academy receiving its new training ship at the Galveston campus.

In 2020, Congress approved $325 million to construct a new National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV). The Lone Star State, expected to arrive on campus in 2025, is specifically designed to support disaster response capabilities and maritime training needs. 

In our June newsletter, we updated you on HB 3447, authorizing the creation of the Texas Space Commission and the Aerospace and Space Economy Consortium. This bill, authored by state Rep. Greg Bonnen ’88, invested $350 million toward efforts to develop commercial space activity in Texas.

In August, The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents formally approved the creation of the Texas A&M Space Institute, as well as the construction of a new Texas A&M facility near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Institute will leverage A&M's existing resources to make new discoveries and advancements in the industry.

Read more on the plans for this new facility here.

On Oct. 6, The Association of Former Students will hold the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Gala, bringing together former students, current students and friends of Texas A&M to honor this year's recipients of the Distinguished Alumnus Award. The highest honor bestowed upon a former student of Texas A&M University, only 330 of Texas A&M's more than 588,000 former students have received this recognition.

Read more on the 12 honorees here.

The start of a new fiscal year for the federal government is fast approaching on Oct. 1. As of this writing, Congress has not passed the required appropriation bills to fund the government past Sept. 30, making a government shutdown more likely each day.

Under "regular order" of the federal budget, Congress passes 12 separate appropriations bills through both chambers. Each federal agency and program is covered under one of these bills. In recent decades, however, regular order has become increasingly less common and the federal government has largely relied instead on omnibus bills — combining two or more of the 12 bills into one — and continuing resolutions, which continue the current appropriations at their same level for a predetermined length of time.

You can learn more about government shutdowns, their implications and the events leading up to this fall's potential shutdown at this link.