In the four weeks since SpaceX and the FAA dropped the Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the proposed expansion to Starbase in Boca Chic

The Environmental Impacts of SpaceX's Oil and Gas Gambit

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2021-10-21 00:00:15

In the four weeks since SpaceX and the FAA dropped the Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for the proposed expansion to Starbase in Boca Chica, I appear to be the only person on the internet actually digging into and writing about all the stuff in the document. Stuff, of course, being everything besides the rockets.

I wanted to write about the details, the stuff deep in the weeds, to my audience. That ship has long sailed. I’ve written 17 posts on the topic. I have no copy editor and I was writing as I discovered new, and sometimes shocking, revelations that were either explicitly mentioned or obviously missing but implied elsewhere. The narrative structure of my series doesn’t exist because there isn’t one. I started writing about everything I could the second I realized how massive of a story this is and haven’t stopped since. It’s time to take a step back and summarize, to the best of my ability.

The construction of SpaceX’s facility in Texas was initially authorized in 2014, following an extensive Environmental Assessment (EA) and release of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), commissioned by the FAA as a required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires full disclosure of all environmental impacts related to a project that receives government funding or utilizes government land. Whichever agency is granting approval for these resources is responsible for the EIS and compliance with NEPA. If you’re building an interstate pipeline, FERC is the lead agency under NEPA. A DOE grant for a power plant makes them the lead agency, and so on.

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