Colorado’s U.S. senators met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday and came away with an assurance that the ultimate location of U.S. Space Command won’t be based on political considerations.

The meeting took place three days after U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper voted against confirming a top Pentagon nominee and threatened to hold up additional confirmation votes, saying Austin had ignored their requests to discuss the decision to move the military command’s permanent headquarters from Colorado to Alabama.

“We met with Secretary Austin today and agreed with DOD that politics should have no role in the Space Command basing decision process,” the senators said in a joint statement.

The lawmakers and others in the state’s congressional delegation have been urging the Biden administration to reconsider the decision ever since outgoing former President Donald Trump announced the move two years ago in the final days of his administration, maintaining that the base should stay at its temporary home at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs for national security and fiscal reasons.

The move has been on hold, pending completion of a review of the decision-making process by the Biden administration.

In their statement, the senators reiterated arguments they’ve been making about the advantages of keeping the headquarters in Colorado.

“Over the last two years, investigations revealed that senior military leaders identified Peterson Space Force Base as their top choice for Space Command’s headquarters because it will reach Full Operational Capability faster than any other location, cost less, and minimize attrition and disruption to the mission – all of which are critical to our national security. Instead, President Trump put politics first with his abrupt decision to send U.S. Space Command to Alabama,” Bennet and Hickenlooper said.

“In the face of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s saber rattling in the Pacific, national security cannot just be one of many criteria. It has to be the central priority. We expressed these concerns to Secretary Austin today, and reiterated that, in the best interest of our national security, Space Command must remain in Colorado.”

A pair of reports issued this year by federal watchdogs found “significant shortfalls” in the base selection process under the Trump administration but stopped short of recommending that it be reversed.

Months after the Department of the Air Force said in January 2021 that an Army base in Huntsville, Ala., had been chosen as the site of Space Command’s permanent headquarters, Trump said on a radio show that the move had been his decision.

On Monday, Bennet and Hickenlooper became the lone Democrats to vote against confirming Brendan Owens as assistant secretary of defense for energy and installations, though the Senate confirmed him to the position on a 60-35 vote. Bennet said after the vote that Austin hadn’t responded to requests for a meeting, adding that he would “consider holds on other Pentagon nominees” until a meeting took place.

The senators didn’t get an indication when the Pentagon plans to announce its final decision, their offices said.