Coastal czars’ launch denial targets speech

We’ve long argued the California Coastal Commission, which regulates development issues along the state’s 840-mile coast, operates as an unaccountable fiefdom. It wantonly halts construction and imposes unreasonable conditions on property owners within the overly broad coastal zone. It also intervenes in matters that exceed its authority.

But even by the commission’s standards, the latest revelations are troubling. SpaceX, the aerospace company launched by Elon Musk in 2002, last week sued the commission after it denied the company’s effort to increase its number of annual rocket launches in conjunction with the US Space Force at Vandenberg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara, according to news reports.

Its federal lawsuit made a free-speech case: “Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO.” The commission’s “public hearing record indisputably shows overt, and shocking, political bias. There is no pretext – the political basis of the commission’s action is plain for all to see.”

Musk, the politically outspoken owner of X, may be an acquired taste that many people have yet to acquire. But whatever one’s views about him, it’s inappropriate for a government agency to use its power to stifle his business based on those views. The lawsuit listed as evidence public statements by coastal commissioners.

Here’s one example, from Chair Caryl Hart: “The concern is with SpaceX increasing its launches, not with the other companies increasing their launches … we’re dealing with a company … the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and made it clear what his point of view is.” That’s damning, as a commissioner said specifically that her concern centers on the company’s views rather than anything related to the environmental impact of launches.

It’s also indicative of this out-of-control state commission that it claims authority over launches at a federal-government facility on federal lands – another point raised in the SpaceX lawsuit. We’re not always big fans of Musk, but this filing has us cheering.