On July 28, 2026 the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) submitted a new proposed rule that would exempt launch companies and spaceports from thirteen environmental laws that for the last few decades have been requiring environmental reassessments — the equivalent of environmental impact statements — repeatedly for the same location whenever a company decides it wishes to change its operations in some manner, no matter how minor.

FAA proposes to amend its commercial space licensing regulations to streamline the licensing process and reduce regulatory burden for applicants. Specifically, FAA proposes to invoke the Secretary of Transportation’s statutory authority to waive requirements of laws of the U.S. for a license or permit, after consultation with the head of the appropriate executive agency, when the requirement is not necessary to protect the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

FAA proposes waiving requirements under 13 laws for commercial space licenses and permits to operate a launch site, licenses to operate a reentry site, experimental permits, and licenses to operate a launch or reentry vehicle.

Environmental reassessments have become excessively complex in the last decade, generally involving multiple government agencies and requiring months if not years to get written and finalized. And there has been a decided mission creep, requiring them more and more sometimes for relatively minor changes at a site or for a rocket. For example, every time SpaceX has decided to change its launch plans at Boca Chica, the FAA has had to do a new reassessment. When the company wished to increase the number of launches to five, a reassessment had to be done. When it wanted to increase that number to 25, another reassessment was required. When it wanted to go from suborbital to orbital launches, another was required. Then another was required when SpaceX proposed several different orbital paths.

Figure 2 of IG report, annotated further by me.

Nor is that a complete list of reassessments at Boca Chica. The same thing has occurred in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center, but not just for SpaceX but for every company that is trying to build launchpads there, as shown on the map to the right. Every single one of them has had to get an environmental reassessment, even though they are all launching from pads that have been used previously and the environmental consequences are very well known.

The FAA outlines at length the problem:

In accordance with §§ 420.15, 433.7, 437.21, and 450.47, an applicant must provide the FAA with information needed to show that the FAA complies with the procedures and policies of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and other applicable environmental laws, regulations, and Executive Orders. These respective sections also require that, if a Categorical Exclusion (CATEX) does not apply to the proposed action, an applicant must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA), assume financial responsibility for preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), or provide information to support a written re-evaluation of a previously submitted EA or EIS, when directed by the FAA.

While FAA strives to complete these environmental reviews expeditiously, these environmental reviews for each license to operate a launch site, license to operate a reentry site, experimental permit, and license to operate a launch or reentry vehicle can involve multiple statutes and agencies, sometimes leading to duplicative processes and delay for near-term launch operations.

Not surprisingly, environmental groups have already filed lawsuits attempting to block this rule change. Yet, all the change would do is bring this one industry — launching rockets — back to the regulatory framework that existed prior to President Obama. Before then such repeated complex reassessments were only required for major and really significant changes, not relatively minor ones.

It is very likely the Trump administration will approve this change. It is also very likely that it will be canceled should a Democrat win the presidency again. Thus, the companies preparing for the first launches of new rockets at new launchpads (Stoke Space, Relativity, Astra, Rocket Lab, Firefly, and even SpaceX) must assume they will only have a short window, no more than two years, in which to get things built and operational.