Texas Supreme Court denies request to save beach from SpaceX
Environmental groups say unanimous decision elevates the company’s interests over the rights of Lone Star state residents
By Bruce Golding
Elon Musk’s SpaceX can keep closing a Texas beach to launch rockets from the company’s nearby Starbase, according to the state’s Supreme Court.
The state’s highest court rejected claims brought by environmental groups that barring public access to Boca Chica Beach violated the state’s constitution.
Friday’s unanimous, 24-page opinion overruled an appeals court that had sided with environmental groups and reinstated a trial judge’s decision to throw out their lawsuit.
Writing for the court, Justice Rebecca Huddle cited the Lone Star State’s 1959 Open Beaches Act, which voters enshrined in in the state’s constitution in 2009.
The measure protected the public’s right to beach access, “but it did not expand or confer on private citizens a right of enforcement or otherwise alter the preexisting enforcement scheme, which resided with governmental actors alone,” she wrote.
Huddle said the “trial court was thus correct to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.”
State Attorney General Ken Paxton, who intervened in the case, praised the ruling on social media.
“Texas law allows for portions of a beach to be secured for Texans’ safety, which is exactly what’s needed to ensure SpaceX has a safe and operational launch site,” wrote Paxton, who defeated Republican Sen. John Cornyn in last month’s GOP Senate primary with the help of President Donald Trump.
Lawyer Marisa Perales, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, told The Texas Tribune that the decision “elevates SpaceX’s interests over Texans’ rights” and rendered the open beaches amendment “toothless.”
“The government has essentially given Boca Chica beach to SpaceX to use as its blast zone for its rocket launches and other related activities, and the supreme court appears to have endorsed that decision, by saying that the affected public has no remedy to enforce their constitutional right to access their own beach,” Perales wrote in an email.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved SpaceX’s use of a launch site next to the beach on the condition that it restrict public access, which led lawmakers to amend the Open Beaches Act in 2013.
The Texas Supreme Court's ruling came a week after SpaceX went public and began trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
The initial public offering priced shares in the company at $135 a share for a market valuation of about $1.8 trillion, making it Wall Street's biggest IPO.
It also made 54-year-old Musk, who owns almost half of SpaceX's stock, the world's first trillionaire.
The share price skyrocketed high as $225 earlier this week before falling to $185 at the close of trading Friday.
Forbes estimates Musk’s fortune at roughly $1.2 trillion, making him about four times as wealthy as Google cofounder Larry Page, whose estimated $301 billion net worth makes him No. 2 on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people.