WASHINGTON — The Department of Transportation is proposing to exempt commercial space launch licensing from many environmental regulations, a move praised by industry but criticized by environmental groups.
The department announced July 28 its intent to file a proposed rule for public comment that would exempt Federal Aviation Administration licenses for commercial launches and reentries, as well as launch sites, from 13 federal laws and associated regulations.
The rule would invoke the statutory authority of the secretary of transportation to waive requirements of those laws in the licensing process after consulting with the heads of the agencies responsible for enforcing those laws, and after concluding those requirements are “not necessary to protect the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States,” the rule stated.
Among the laws that would be waived in the proposed rule is the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires environmental reviews for “major federal actions” that include licenses. The proposal cited a 2025 Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of NEPA to direct consequences of the proposed action.
“And just as the Supreme Court recognized a need for a ‘course correction’ in the judicial review of NEPA, so too has DOT and FAA identified a need for course correction in application of NEPA and other related laws to the commercial space licensing and permitting process,” the proposed rule states.
The proposed rule will be formally published in the Federal Register on July 30. That will start a 30-day public comment period, after which the Federal Aviation Administration will review the comments before issuing a final rule.
The rule stems from an executive order issued last August by President Donald Trump on commercial space policy. The order called on the secretary of transportation to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite the Department of Transportation’s environmental reviews for, and other obstacles to the granting of, launch and reentry licenses and permits.”
“America won the first Space Race, and we can do it again, but only if we get government red tape out of the way,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement about the proposed rule.
The executive order directed the secretary of transportation to report on the actions taken regarding environmental regulations as well as other launch licensing reforms within 120 days. The announcement did not explain why it took nearly a year to publish the proposed rule.
Many in the launch industry have pushed for reduced environmental regulations among broader licensing reforms. They have noted the environmental assessments and environmental impact statements required by the regulations can be expensive and time-consuming, slowing progress. Such reviews have rarely, if ever, blocked projects, but may require companies to implement some mitigations.
“Commercial launch and reentry operations, along with the space infrastructure and spaceport network supporting them, are the backbone of the U.S. space economy,” the Commercial Space Federation, a trade group, said in a statement. “This proposed rule would accelerate the licensing process, reduce regulatory and administrative burdens on industry and federal agencies, and enable commercial space transportation capacity to keep up with growing demand.”
Environmental groups, though, strongly oppose the proposal, noting it would waive not just NEPA but other environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.
“NASA has conducted space launches for decades in a responsible way, but now Trump wants to gut even the most basic environmental safeguards to enrich some of the world’s wealthiest people,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.
The center is among a group of organizations suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over a proposed land swap with SpaceX that would give the company 715 acres of land in the Lower Rio Grande Wildlife Refuge adjacent to its Starbase, Texas, site in exchange for 683 acres of SpaceX-owned land elsewhere in the region.
On July 20, the groups filed for an emergency injunction to block the transfer, fearing that the swap could be completed before the case could be heard in U.S. District Court in Washington. On July 28, the court ruled that the case should instead be transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas because the case involves land in that district.
Related
Read the original article here