Musk sues California Coastal Commission over SpaceX launches

It turns out Elon Musk wasn’t kidding.

When the California Coastal Commission on Thursday rejected an Air Force request to allow its contractor, SpaceX, to increase its number of rocket launches, the world’s richest man didn’t. well taken.

“Incredibly inappropriate” tweeted Muskthe founder and CEO of SpaceX, noting that some of the commissioners had mentioned his political leanings before rejecting this request from the Air Force.

“What I post on this platform has nothing to do with a ‘coastal commission’ in California!

“He is filing a complaint against them on Monday for violating the First Amendment.”

With the courts closed Monday, 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 operations — and, in doing so, harming the nation’s space program — because it doesn’t like Musk’s policies.

Created in 1972, this powerful commission is charged with regulating development along California’s 840 miles of coastline.

The Air Force had asked the commission to increase the number of annual SpaceX launches at Vandenberg Space Base in Santa Barbara County from 36 to 50.

By denying the request, the commission “flagrantly and unlawfully exceeded its authority,” the complaint alleges.

By mentioning Musk’s policies, 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.” regular” enshrined in the Constitution.

All members of the Coastal Commission were named in the complaint, 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 spokesperson 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 and SpaceX officials say rocket launches are “federal agency activities” and are not subject to the Coastal Commission’s notoriously intense permitting process.

Hart, who chose not to comment on the growing conflict Monday, repeatedly asserted that regardless of where it operates, SpaceX is a private company and, as such, must apply to the committee for a permit to conditional development.

A Coastal Committee staff report says the “primary goal” of Musk’s company launches “is to expand and further support SpaceX’s commercial satellite Internet and telecommunications network, Starlink.”

Musk’s lawyers have repeatedly criticized this claim, pointing out that California’s Coastal Zone Management Act gives the federal government “exclusive authority” and “prevents any application of state law” on a military base. American.

The attorneys also noted that commercial companies have been launching rockets at Vandenberg for decades, and the commission agreed with that, recognizing that such activities “are consistent with applicable policies of the California Coastal Management Program.”

But the complaint reserved its strongest outrage for what it called a “political witch hunt” that commissioners engaged in at the Oct. 10 meeting.

The complaint listed the concerns raised and criticisms made by the commissioners against Musk during that meeting, however measured and moderate they may have been. These remarks included Hart’s observation that “we are dealing with a company…whose leader has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.”

Acting Commissioner Gretchen Newsom, a San Diego-based union leader with no ties to Gov. Gavin Newsom, read a prepared statement calling attention to a “pattern of disregard for employee well-being” at SpaceX, including harassment and worker safety issues.

She cited the example of eight SpaceX engineers who were fired after circulating an open letter to their colleagues describing a culture of sexism and harassment in the workplace.

Hit with a laundry list of labor law accusations from the National Labor Relations Board, Musk and SpaceX turned around and sued the NLRB the next day.

“Right now,” Newsom continued, “Elon Musk is traveling the country, spewing and tweeting political lies and attacking FEMA.”

True or not, these criticisms were proof, the complaint claims, of the commissioners’ bias.

“No Commissioner, nor any Commission staff member, objected to any of these statements. No one has highlighted their immaterial nature in relation to the issues before the Commission. No one has stated or argued that animosity toward Mr. Musk and/or SpaceX has no place in the Commission’s deliberations, should in no way affect the Commission’s decision, and/or should be completely ignored .”

You can contact staff writer Austin Murphy at [email protected] or on Twitter @ausmurph88.