Siding with SpaceX and the General Land Office, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that environmental groups did not have a right to sue to preserve public access to a beach that has been closed during rocket launches.<\/p>\n
The unanimous ruling<\/a> said a trial judge properly dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the groups could not refile it with changes.<\/p>\n The dispute began in 2021 when then environmental group SaveRGV sued the Texas General Land Office, Commissioner Dawn Buckingham and Cameron County, arguing Boca Chica Beach and State Highway 4 \u2014 the only access road \u2014 had been improperly closed for SpaceX launches. <\/p>\n SaveRGV said the closures violate the Texas Constitution, which was amended in 2009 to guarantee public access to, and use of, state beaches. The amendment was approved with support from 77% of Texans.<\/p>\n The lawsuit, later joined by the Sierra Club and the Carrizo\/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, sought to void a 2013 state law that authorized SpaceX to close Boca Chica Beach as a safety precaution during space flights. <\/p>\n The attorney general\u2019s office intervened to defend the law. <\/p>\n In Friday\u2019s opinion, written by Justice Rebeca Huddle, the Supreme Court said the 2009 constitutional amendment expressly stated that there is no private right to sue to enforce beach access. <\/p>\n \u201cThe plaintiffs are private parties \u2014 organizations whose beachgoing members claim the temporary closures of Boca Chica Beach conflict with their constitutional right to access and use the beach,\u201d Huddle wrote. <\/p>\n The Federal Aviation Administration licensed the SpaceX rocket site at Boca Chica Beach after Elon Musk\u2019s company proved it could restrict public access to the launch area through House Bill 2623<\/a>, the 2013 law that amended the state\u2019s Open Beaches Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n Save RGV argued the beach closures allowed by that 2013 law interfere with the \u201cbeach-access rights\u201d of members who perform conservation work at the beach or use it for recreation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ruling by the state\u2019s highest civil court stopped short of deciding whether the Texas Constitution trumps laws that limit beach access. Instead, it focused on whether the trial judge had properly dismissed the case because the 2009 amendment specified there was no private right to sue.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe trial court was thus correct to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction,\u201d the decision stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n Marisa Perales, an Austin lawyer who represented the environmental groups and the tribe, said the ruling \u201celevates SpaceX\u2019s interests over Texans\u2019 rights\u201d and renders the open beaches amendment \u201ctoothless.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d Perales said in an email.<\/p>\n The ruling noted the tribe also complained that SpaceX beach closures interfere with members\u2019 ability to practice their religion \u2014 an issue that may be able to be raised in a separate lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s holding should not be construed to prohibit the Tribe \u2014 or private parties generally \u2014 from seeking relief for such injuries they suffer due to HB 2623. We hold only that [the open beaches amendment of the constitution] cannot serve as the basis for that relief,\u201d Huddle wrote.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Siding with SpaceX and the General Land Office, the Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled that environmental groups…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[45717,815,4556,287,32482,1564,27,4481,29,293,28,3298,6588],"class_list":["post-344068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-cameron-county","tag-courts","tag-dawn-buckingham","tag-politics","tag-sierra-club","tag-state-government","tag-texas","tag-texas-constitution","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-supreme-court","tag-well-c-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}