Trump’s space order risks environmental disaster while rewarding Musk and Bezos, experts say | Trump administration

A Donald Trump’s draft decree, which aims to exempt the spatial launches from the environment, is considered a gift to actors in the commercial space industry such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others that have long targeted regulations.

But its central components can be illegal and the American president “tries to end the end,” said Jared Margolis, lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, who pleaded environmental problems around launches.

If they are successfully implemented, the launches could create an environmental disaster, according to the defenders. Rocket launches create a huge amount of pollution that can contaminate local sailors and air with high levels of mercury, PFAS, particles and other highly toxic substances. Vibrations, sound waves, heat and explosions damage the habitat and kill fauna, some of which are protected by the endangered species law.

The executive decree orders the American transport service to “use all the authorities available to eliminate or accelerate” environmental examinations. Among the few protections during space launches, the National Environmental Policy Policy Act (NEPA) Review which examines a wide range of impacts on the environment and human health, and the law on coastal areas, a federal law which allows states to decide how the ribs are used.

The order targets both and suggests that the agency could try to bypass the endangered species law.

“The order orders the transport service to do everything they can to avoid NEPA, but that does not mean that this is possible, or that they have the power to do so,” said Margolis.

The decree presents itself at a time when commercial space activity stands. Musk’s SpaceX, the largest space company, made 96 launches in 2023 and targets 180 this year. This number should continue to grow, while other players, such as Blue Horizon in Bezos, quickly increase the launch rates.

Environmental surveillance of the US Federal Government of Lancet has always been low, according to public health defenders. The Trump administration quickly hampered several of the few of the regulatory mechanisms that existed and recently destroyed the funding of research on stratospheric pollution largely caused by SpaceX from Musk.

“We accelerate the number of launches and blinding the follow -up effects they have on the environment – which expresses the disaster,” said an employee of the space industry who solves NEPA problems, but asked anonymity to talk about the order without reprisals.

Spatial companies must obtain a launch permit for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which performs a NEPA review as part of the process. The journals are the framework by which federal agencies should assess the environmental or human risks of a project.

They take into account air pollution, the prejudices of endangered species, water pollution, the risk of forest fire, noise pollution and potential risks for human health, among others.

The FAA was faced with criticism from space companies for taking too long to examine the launch permits – about five months – while environmental groups have castigated the agency so as not to use NEPA notices to require more protections on the launch sites.

The executive decree orders in part to the ministry to classify launches as “categorical exclusions”, which is the legal term for minor modifications to a site which do not require an environmental examination of the NEPA. Among the other categorical exclusions are alterations of landscaping or lighting.

Legal experts who examined the order questioned the legality of the assertion that a launch of rocket has similar environmental impacts on landscaping changes.

The plan “corresponds to their global desire to eliminate environmental considerations and criticism,” said Dan Farber, environmental lawyer at the University of California in Berkeley.

“It is clear that Trump wants to do, it’s the bulldoze through all these procedural things,” added Farber.

However, there is a more plausible route. The law on the launch of commercial spaces includes a provision which allows the Secretary of Transport to try to exempt the requirements of environmental law if it is determined that the law is not necessary to protect “public health and the security of goods”, said Margolis. This would be accomplished thanks to a legal regulation process.

But the provision is in conflict with the NEPA, which applies to any federal action with an important environmental impact, said Margolis.

“We argue that the examination is necessary to protect public health and security, and the NEPA applies,” he added.

NEPA journals offer a precious legal avenue for challenges to the worst abuse, and Margolis said that the order seems to be an answer to the arguments it has advanced in which the Center for Biological Diversity has continued several federal agencies and SpaceX on launches from the Boca Chica launch site, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico.

The site is alongside a sensitive habitat for protected species, such as the Kemp Ridley Sea Tortoise, which is on the verge of extinction. SpaceX launched the largest rockets ever made from the site, and several of them exploded, crying particles, metal and concrete in the region. The debris caused brush fires and covered the houses six miles of dust.

The sound waves of launches are known to kill birds and other animals, and SpaceX was cited by the environmental regulators of Texas to spit wastewater very contaminated by mercury in adjacent waters.

However, the FAA did not do much to alleviate damage to the environment and said that the problems did not justify an in-depth examination. Margolis said that SpaceX, with the blessing of the FAA, had transformed the ecologically sensitive area into a “sacrifice area” and that the dispute is underway.

The order also seems to be designed to help Musk in its fight with the regulators of the State of California who have so far prevented Spacex from expanding the number of launches along the coast, partly using their authority under the law on the management of coastal areas. Trump’s order would give the federal authorities more power to intervene and restrict the decision -making powers of state agencies.

Margolis said this part of the order was also illegal because Trump was again trying to modify the law by decree.

“This is a subject of discussion to show that it supports the industry, but in the end, it is not something that can happen as it says,” said Margolis.