Elon Musk makes good on threat, sues California panel that limited SpaceX launches
- by Santa Rosa Press Democrat
- Oct 17, 2024
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Elon Musk wasn’t kidding, it turned out.
On Thursday, when the California Coastal Commission rebuffed a request from the Air Force to allow its contractor, SpaceX, to increase its number of rocket launches, the world’s richest man did not take it well.
“Incredibly inappropriate,” tweeted Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, noting that some of the commissioners had mentioned his political leanings before giving the thumbs down to that Air Force request.
“What I post on this platform has nothing to do with a ‘coastal commission’ in California!
“Filing suit against them Monday for violating the First Amendment.”
With courts closed Monday, the Los Angeles-based law firm Venable LLP had to wait until Tuesday to file a 45-page complaint, “Space Exploration Technologies Corp. v. California Coastal Commission” in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
SpaceX accuses the commission of disrupting the company’s business — and, in so doing, harming the nation’s space program — because it dislikes Musk’s politics.
Established in 1972, the powerful commission is charged with regulating development along California’s 840-mile coastline.
The Air Force had asked the commission to increase SpaceX’s number of annual launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, from 36 to 50.
By rejecting that request, the commission was “egregiously and unlawfully overreaching its authority,” the complaint alleged.
By mentioning Musk’s politics, the complaint states, members of this “rogue” panel had engaged in “naked political discrimination” against SpaceX and Musk, “in violation of the rights of free speech and due process” enshrined in the Constitution.
All coastal commission members were named in the suit, including Caryl Hart, a Sonoma County resident and former director of the county’s Regional Parks Department. Hart has served on the commission since 2019 and was elected chair in January.
A commission spokesman declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.
As a state entity, the Coastal Commission has limited influence over Department of Defense activities on federal land. Air Force officials and SpaceX contend that the rocket launches fall under the umbrella of “federal agency activity”— and aren’t subject to the Coastal Commission’s notoriously intense permitting process.
Hart, who chose not comment on the growing conflict Monday, has repeatedly contended that regardless of where it is operating, SpaceX is a private company and, as such, must apply to the committee for a conditional development permit.
A report from coastal committee staff said the “primary purpose” of Musk’s company’s launches "is to further expand and support SpaceX’s commercial satellite internet and telecommunications network, Starlink.”
Musk’s lawyers took repeated aim at that contention, pointing out that California’s Coastal Zone Management Act gives the federal government “exclusive authority,” and “preempts any application of state law” on a U.S. military base.
The lawyers also noted that commercial companies have been launching rockets at Vandenberg for decades, and the commission has been fine with it, agreeing that such activities “are consistent with the enforceable policies of California’s coastal management program.”
But the complaint reserved its strongest indignation for what it alleged to be “political witch hunting” in which commissioners had engaged during the Oct. 10 meeting.
The complaint cataloged concerns raised and criticisms leveled by commissioners against Musk in that meeting, however measured and mild. Those remarks included Hart’s observation that “we’re dealing with a company … the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.”
Alternate commissioner Gretchen Newsom, a San Diego-based labor leader and no relation to Gov. Gavin Newsom, read a prepared statement calling attention to a “pattern of disregard for employee welfare” at SpaceX, including harassment and worker safety issues.
She cited the example of eight SpaceX engineers who were fired after they circulated an open letter to their colleagues describing a workplace culture of sexism and harassment.
Hit with a list of labor law charges by the National Labor Relations Board, Musk and SpaceX turned around and sued the NLRB the following day.
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