Donald Trump is looking to relax environmental rules for commercial spaceship companies. In an executive order titled “enabling competition in the commercial space industry” that he signed on Wednesday, he said it’s imperative to national security that the private rocket-ship industry increase launches “substantially” by 2030.
That would mean, according to the executive order, that those companies may be able to forgo the environmental reviews that are required under the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa). Private space companies are required to get launch permits from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). And, as part of that process, companies are subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Sean Duffy, the US secretary of transportation, which oversees the FAA, called Trump’s executive order “visionary”.
The FAA has faced criticism from space companies for taking too long to review launch permits while environmental groups have lambasted the agency for not using Nepa reviews to require more protections at launch sites.
These environmental reviews are required because rocket launches and landings can be massively disruptive to local towns and residents, along with the natural surroundings. Exhaust, smoke plumes and sonic booms created at launch can injure and kill endangered species, and detritus from exploded rocket parts returning to Earth can harm fish and marine animals with hazardous material spills, fuel slicks and falling objects.
Trump’s executive order appears to especially benefit Elon Musk and his company SpaceX. SpaceX has been seeking to increase its rocket-ship launches and landings around the country. The company has been involved in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups for violating the National Environmental Policy Act; they say the FAA did not do a thorough enough environmental assessment of SpaceX’s impact to endangered species regarding its rocket launches in Boca Chica, Texas.
The lawsuit looked at the first launch of SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket in Texas in April 2023. The spaceship, which is designed to one day make it to Mars, pulverized its launchpad on takeoff, sending chunks of concrete flying 6 miles (10km) away. The blast ignited a grassfire that burned nearly 4 acres (1.5 hectares) of state park and, from what is known, destroyed a nest of bobwhite quail eggs and a collection of blue land crabs.
“This reckless order puts people and wildlife at risk from private companies launching giant rockets that often explode and wreak devastation on surrounding areas,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit.
“Bending the knee to powerful corporations by allowing federal agencies to ignore bedrock environmental laws is incredibly dangerous and puts all of us in harm’s way,” Margolis added. “This is clearly not in the public interest.”
The FAA announced in May that it had given SpaceX permission to increase its number of Starship launches in Texas from five per year to 25. SpaceX has also been seeking to increase launches of its smaller Falcon rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California from 50 per year to 95.
Trump’s executive order would facilitate an expedited review process to get these and other launch permits. Along with SpaceX, the order would benefit commercial space companies like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Horizon, which has also been aiming to increase rocket launches.
The White House touted the order on Wednesday as being the latest “deregulatory action” to reform the National Environmental Policy Act and eliminate “burdensome DEI requirements”.
