When SpaceX was proposing its Starship-Super Heavy Launch program at its 65-acre site in south Texas, it needed to obtain permission from the Federal Aviation Administration, the sole federal agency that controlled SpaceX actions on private property.
The FAA obliged, issuing a final programmatic environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact on June 13, 2022. Ten months later, it issued a commercial space transportation license, allowing the company to begin launching its Starship-Super Heavy vehicle. It’s been described as the most powerful rocket in the world, holding up to 3,700 metric tons of liquid methane.
In June 2023, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the FAA on behalf of itself and four other conservation groups. In issuing the license to SpaceX, the lawsuit claimed, the FAA “has authorized the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program at Boca Chica, Texas, without complying with bedrock federal environmental law, without fully analyzing the significant environmental and community impacts of the SpaceX launch program – including destruction of some of the most vital migratory bird habitat in North America – and without requiring mitigation sufficient to offset those impacts.”
Less than a week after receiving the license, on April 20, SpaceX launched the first super-heavy rocket. “Just minutes into the launch, the rocket exploded,” the complaint states. “Furthermore, the launch pad was destroyed, scattering debris and ash over a large area, including adjacent lands that provide habitat for endangered species.”
Despite the explosion, the FAA did not announce any plans for a supplemental environmental review of SpaceX operations “to consider the human health and environmental impacts associated with the explosion.”
As reported in the complaint, “The FAA’s chief of staff for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation initially stated that the FAA planned to conduct a new environmental impact statement for the Starship/Super Heavy Launch Vehicle Program to analyze the environmental impacts of the program pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act; however, the FAA subsequently delegated that decision to SpaceX and did not prepare an EIS to analyze the launch program, even though permitting SpaceX to launch the largest rockets known to humankind is the type of significant federal action that requires full analysis in an EIS.”
In December, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a supplemental claim, naming the Fish and Wildlife Service as a defendant as well as the FAA.
The supplemental complaint notes that the FAA did not conduct its own investigation into the failed launch, but allowed SpaceX to file its own report and recommended corrective actions.
According to the supplemental complaint, the FAA did reinitiate formal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service as required by Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. This was required since the failed launch had had an impact on endangered species, including those in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Reserve.
“In the reinitiated ESA consultation, FWS likewise failed to fully analyze the impacts of the April 20 launch and the potential for further harm to listed species from subsequent launches,” the supplemental complaint states.
Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia did not agree to adding the FWS as a defendant. However, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. – better known as SpaceX – was allowed to participate in the litigation as a movant.
As of late May, the case was still being litigated, with all parties having filed motions for summary judgment.
Now the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Air Force in federal court in Hawaiʻi. This time, the complaint, filed May 28, does not concern the impacts to natural resources of the rocket re-entry program proposed for Johnston Atoll. Rather, it concerns the failure of the FWS and the Air Force to comply with Freedom of Information requests that the center made on April 7. Under federal law, the government had until May 19 to respond, but the complaint states that the center “has not received a determination or any responsive records to date.”
The relief sought is a court finding that both agencies violated FOIA and an order requiring them to “make an immediate determination on the center’s FOIA requests and promptly release all requested records and information … by a date certain.”
— Patricia Tummons
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