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Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce President and CEO J.J Ament gives the closing remarks during the 2022 State of the City on Thursday, August 4, 2022, in the Seawell Ballroom at Denver Center for the Performing Arts in Denver, Colo. (Timothy Hurst/The Denver Gazette)

DENVER • Metro Chamber of Commerce officials and business leaders on Thursday singled out the biggest issues impacting businesses in 2022, including the potential move of U.S. Space Command headquarters.

The comments came during a panel discussion during the chamber’s State of the City event in front of more than 700 businesses leaders.

President and CEO J. J. Ament Ament said the chamber will urge U.S. Sens Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper to add an amendment to President Joe Biden’s proposed Inflation Reduction Act that would keep the U.S. Space Command headquarters in Colorado.

“That can be both a national security imperative as well as the first step in reducing inflation by saving that billion or more dollars” it would cost to move the headquarters to Alabama, Ament said.

Two federal reviews have confirmed “fundamental flaws” in the process that led to former President Donald Trump awarding Space Command headquarters to Huntsville, Ala., and that the decision defied the recommendation of top military brass, who preferred it remain in Colorado Springs.

A Bennet aide said they had not heard from any Denver chamber official on the proposal.

“No one has suggested this idea to our office because it’s not even possible under reconciliation,” a Hickenlooper spokesperson said. “If it were, we would have absolutely insisted on Space Command’s inclusion in the bill.”

Ament, in an email to the Gazette after the event, stated: "Understand complexity of reconciliation, and if a billion-dollars-plus isn’t big enough to address this issue now, then we will certainly support our Senators using their unique positions in an equally divided Senate to advance this important Colorado and national security interest at their next legislative opportunity.”