President Trump on Tuesday announced plans to move U.S. Space Command headquarters to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

The decision, which Trump said was “seven years in the making,” reverses the Biden administration’s previous call to keep SPACECOM located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“I am thrilled to report that the U.S. Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City,” Trump said in remarks from the Oval Office. “We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don’t think that influenced though, right?”

During his first term, Trump reestablished SPACECOM in 2019 and in January 2021 the Air Force announced its choice of Huntsville, Alabama as the preferred location for its headquarters.

However, the Biden administration in July 2023 decided to keep SPACECOM at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs where the command’s interim headquarters were located, stating the decision had the backing of then senior Pentagon, Air Force and SPACECOM leadership.

“We initially selected Huntsville for the SPACECOM headquarters, yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration. And as you know, they moved them to a different locale. And today we’re moving forward with what we want to do and the place that we want to have this. This will be there for hopefully hundreds of years,” Trump said.

Both the Government Accountability Office and Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General conducted reports in the decision-making process and found that Pentagon and Air Force studies had backed Huntsville as the pick for SPACECOM headquarters, while noting the Air Force did not include disruption to operations as a factor in its decision criteria for choosing a permanent base for the command.

“U.S. Space Command stands ready to carry out the direction of the president following today’s announcement of Huntsville, Alabama as the command’s permanent headquarters location,” SPACECOM said in a statement on Tuesday.

Trump on Tuesday was joined in the Oval Office for his announcement by Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., as well as Republican members of Alabama’s Congressional delegation, including House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers.

“Everyone of these people would call me and lobby me. I said, ‘Katie, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I know. I know what you want.’ She said, ‘That’s right, sir. That’s what I want.’ And they got their way,” Trump said.

Rogers, who has been vocal in his push to move SPACECOM to Huntsville, said the Biden administration’s move to keep the headquarters in Colorado was a “political” decision.

“I appreciate this president standing up and being strong and saying he’s going to make this right and put it where it rightfully belongs and that’s Huntsville, Alabama,” Rogers said.

When asked why Huntsville made for the better headquarters location, Trump said Redstone Arsenal “works because we have so much else there.”

“But even locationally, where it is. And when you think about flying distances and you can save half an hour, as fast as some of these planes go and things go and even the rockets go, you can save [time] by having the best location,” Trump said.

Tuberville said locating SPACECOM at Redstone Arsenal will “save the taxpayers $480 million.”

Trump also cited Colorado’s mail-in voting policy as “one of the big problems” that factored into his decision to move the headquarters to Alabama.

The entire Colorado Congressional delegation said on Tuesday they plan to push back on the decision, stating it “sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”

“Today’s decision to move U.S Space Command’s headquarters out of Colorado and to Alabama will directly harm our state and the nation. We are united in fighting to reverse this decision. Bottom line — moving Space Command headquarters weakens our national security at the worst possible time,” Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet and Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen and Republican Reps. Jeff Hurd, Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank and Gabe Evans said in a joint statement.

“Space Command’s long-term presence in Colorado Springs has also created a large number of civilian businesses and workers on which the Command now relies. Those people will not simply move with the Command at the military’s whim. Many of them will leave the industry altogether, creating a disruption in the workforce that will take our national defense systems decades to recreate,” the Colorado Congressional delegation added.

This story was first published by Defense Daily