This is our exclusive newsletter on the September 21 order in Center for Biological Diversity v. Nesvik. A federal judge declined to block the land exchange between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and SpaceX. We read all 27 pages.
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EXCLUSIVE: SpaceX Cleared to Expand Starbase in Texas
This is our exclusive newsletter on the September 21 order in Center for Biological Diversity v. Nesvik. A federal judge declined to block the land exchange between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and SpaceX. We read all 27 pages.
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September 22, 2026 – Court Ruling Exclusive
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The document: Case 1:26-cv-00831, Document 66, 27 pages, filed September 21, 2026 in the Southern District of Texas. Full citation in Sources.
If you don’t have time to read 27 pages of a federal court order, you can read this newsletter in ~5 minutes.
Quick Bites
SpaceX
- US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. denied the preliminary injunction on September 21. The land exchange can proceed.
- The court found the plaintiffs “have not established a substantial likelihood that they have standing in this matter.”
- It also found they failed on irreparable injury. It also found they failed on the balance of equities and the public interest. All three go against them.
- The court never reached the merits. Claims under NEPA, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Refuge Act are untouched.
- The Service gives up 715 acres of the Boca Chica Tract. SpaceX gives up 683 acres it already owns.
- About 700 acres of the land going to SpaceX sits inside the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark.
- SpaceX told the court its only current plans are expanding the Massey Test Site and building a service road eastward.
- Arguing against a pause, SpaceX cited Starship launch cadence, its ability to deploy AI data centers, NASA’s planned 2028 crewed lunar landing and a $102 million Air Force Research Laboratory contract.
- SpaceX has signed a Programmatic Agreement under Section 106 of the NHPA and committed to restrictions on its activity at the site.
- The Service’s own decision memo says SpaceX’s planned development “will result in foreseeable and unavoidable consequences.”
- The Service and SpaceX executed the agreement September 1 and expected to transfer title September 22.
- The Service logged over 25,000 public comments. The order says the majority opposed the exchange.
Media Matters
1. What the court decided. And what it did not
Rodriguez ruled on one question. Does the swap pause while the case runs. He did not rule on whether the Service broke the law.
The order says so plainly. The court resolved the motion on a single contested issue and “does not reach the other challenges that Defendants advance.” Rule 65 asks four things of anyone seeking an injunction: likelihood of success, a substantial threat of irreparable harm, a balance of equities in their favor and the public interest. The third and fourth merge when the government is on the other side.
The plaintiffs lost all three that the court reached.
Worth holding onto: the claims under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act are still live. Headlines calling this a win for SpaceX are describing the injunction, not the case.
2. The evidence gap that decided it
The standing fight split in two.
On access, the plaintiffs lost outright. Members said the swap would cost them access. Rodriguez found the property was already legally closed to the public, so nobody loses a right they never held. The Service also said it would keep the land closed either way, which defeats redressability.
On observation, they got further than most coverage suggests. Mary Angela Branch and Jim Chapman described watching wildlife on the property from Highway 4 and from the Rio Grande. Rodriguez found their declarations “establish that these two individuals have enjoyed the aesthetic and recreational value of the Property, in a manner that they intend to continue, and in an area subject to immediate activity by SpaceX upon the transfer of title.”
Then the case turned on evidence.
Rodriguez wrote that in support of their beliefs about future harm, “neither Branch nor Chapman offer any evidence.” He added that the plaintiffs submitted no assessment of the environmental impact from SpaceX’s immediate plans near the Massey Test Site.
The Final Environmental Assessment cut the other way. Both declarants named the ocelot as a species they enjoy seeing there. The assessment concluded “it is unlikely that ocelots occur in lands proposed for divestiture.” On another species they raised, it found that none of the divestiture lands south of SH 4 contain piping plover habitat.
His summary: “The competing evidence weighs heavily in Defendants’ favor.”
One passage cuts toward the plaintiffs. The Service’s own decision memo concedes that SpaceX’s planned development “will result in foreseeable and unavoidable consequences.” Rodriguez noted that concession “may bear relevance were this case to reach trial,” then set it aside as carrying little weight on immediate impact at this stage.
3. What SpaceX told the court a delay would cost
This is the part nobody is reporting. The passage is the clearest public statement of how SpaceX frames Starbase inside its wider business.
Arguing against an injunction, the company said a delay to the Massey expansion would hurt Starship’s launch cadence. From there it listed four consequences.
It would impair the company’s ability to deploy artificial intelligence data centers to meet accelerating demand for computing power. It would pressure milestones tied to NASA’s planned crewed lunar landing in 2028. It would affect compliance with a $102 million contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory to investigate “rapid point-to-point military cargo transportation using Starship.” And it would cost the local community, by removing the need to hire employees, contractors and suppliers.
SpaceX also said an injunction would force it to “redirect engineering, permitting, and construction to less suitable land it already owns,” meaning the parcels the Service wants, which would steer building onto the higher-value conservation land.
Rodriguez did not take all of it. He wrote that the court “shares some of Plaintiffs’ skepticism” that a modest Massey expansion and an access road are a lynchpin to enterprise-wide efforts. He still found a pause would create uncertainty, force changes to development plans and add hardship to meeting milestones and contractual obligations.
4. What changes hands. And how it was scored
The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge dates to 1979 and covers over 103,000 acres. The Boca Chica Tract is 11,500 of those, in Cameron County.
The land going to SpaceX sits between State Highway 4 and the Rio Grande. The order describes coastal prairie and thornscrub, with clay lomas, wind tidal flats and native brushland.
SpaceX hands back ~200 acres adjacent to or inside the Boca Chica Tract, which cuts fragmentation, plus 476.4 acres next to the Laguna Atascosa refuge several miles north.
The two sides built a scoring system together. Service specialists assigned each parcel a Biological Importance Score from 0 to 1. The land being given up scored 0.33 to 0.60 and was classed poor (497 acres) or medium (215 acres). The land being received scored 0.73 to 1.00 and was classed high quality (692 acres).
On the historic land, the assessment found that transferring federal property inside the Palmito Ranch battlefield would count as an adverse effect under Section 106 unless enforceable preservation conditions were put in place. The Service’s answer was the Programmatic Agreement SpaceX signed.
Sources
Primary document
Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc. and South Texas Environmental Justice Network v. Brian Nesvik, et al., Civil Action No. 1:26-CV-831. United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division. Order and Opinion, Document 66, 27 pages, filed September 21, 2026. Signed by United States District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 24) DENIED.
Record cited inside the order
- Plaintiffs’ Motion and Memorandum in Support, Doc. 24 and Doc. 24-1
- Amended Complaint, Doc. 48
- Final Environmental Assessment, Doc. 26-4
- Draft Environmental Assessment, Doc. 26-19
- USFWS Decision Memorandum, Doc. 26-21
- Biological Assessment for the Proposed Boca Chica Land Exchange, February 2026, Doc. 26-12
- Member declarations: Branch, Doc. 24-3 and Doc. 53-2; Hinojosa, Doc. 24-4; Mancias, Doc. 24-5; Chapman, Doc. 24-6 and Doc. 53-1; Hartl, Doc. 24-7
- Bradley Declaration with satellite imagery exhibits, Doc. 25
- Styer Declaration and Expansion Map, Doc. 52-1 and Doc. 52-2
- Service Response, Doc. 51; SpaceX Response, Doc. 52; Reply, Doc. 53; SpaceX Sur-Reply, Doc. 61
Procedural history
Filed June 10, 2026 in the District of Columbia. SpaceX intervened by the end of that month. Transferred to the Southern District of Texas on July 28. Hearing held September 3, with no witnesses called by any party.
Parties
- Plaintiffs: Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc., South Texas Environmental Justice Network
- Defendants: United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Brian Nesvik, in his official capacity as Director
- Intervenor Defendant: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation
Supporting public record
US Fish and Wildlife Service, Finding of No Significant Impact and Decision for the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge Boca Chica Land Exchange, June 2026.
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