Texans who say a favorite stretch of coastline is being turned into a rocket blast zone just hit a legal wall. The Texas Supreme Court on Friday unanimously tossed a lawsuit aimed at keeping Boca Chica Beach open during SpaceX launches, ruling that the environmental and tribal groups behind it never had the right to bring the case in the first place, the Guardian reports. The decision, which upholds a lower court's dismissal "with prejudice," blocks them from trying again with a revised suit.
Save RGV, the Sierra Club, and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas had argued that repeated shutdowns of Boca Chica Beach and its lone access road during launches violate a 2009 constitutional amendment guaranteeing public beach access. They also sought to overturn a 2013 law that lets SpaceX temporarily close the beach for safety reasons. "This is a premeditated scheme by a private company, with the State's help, to take control of public land for its own profit, impairing the public's constitutional right in the process," the lawsuit against the Texas General Land Office, Cameron County, and Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham stated.
But Justice Rebeca Huddle wrote that the amendment specifically bars private parties from suing to enforce those access rights. "Because the claims are not viable, it follows that the defendants, all of whom are governmental actors, retain their immunity from suit," she wrote.
- Attorney Marisa Perales, who represents the groups, told the Texas Tribune the ruling "elevates SpaceX's interests over Texans' rights." The government, she said, has "essentially given Boca Chica Beach to SpaceX to use as its blast zone for its rocket launches and other related activities," she said, and the top 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."
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