To prevent ignoring other agencies/laws the FAA does not issue a launch permit unless the other agencies/laws are satisfied. Otherwise people would just do what the FAA directly regulates and ignore the rest and get a launch permit.

> prevent ignoring other agencies/laws the FAA does not issue a launch permit unless the other agencies/laws are satisfied

Which is wild. This isn’t how regulation, including with the FAA, works in other contexts. (If an airline mucks up a securities filing, that isn’t the FAA’s jurisdiction.)

The legislative fix may be in separating launch permits from environmental clearances.

Having a Lead Federal Agency (FAA's role here) during permitting is a very common and positive thing. It helps avoid the left hand not talking to the right hand when permits from multiple agencies are required for a single activity.

If they were separate SpaceX couldn't just ignore the lack of EPA permit and launch anyway just because they have an FAA permit, and by having them coordinated it decreases run-around from different agencies giving conflicting demands. SpaceX would likely face more delays not fewer if the FAA wasn't acting as a Lead Federal Agency here.

https://www.achp.gov/digital-library-section-106-landing/fre...

https://www.epa.gov/nepa/what-national-environmental-policy-...

No, you want to prevent contamination of the water supply. Being able to ignore that rule is not an improvement.

Are they alleging launching the rocket will contaminate the water supply? Or that they do not have a permit to do what the launch will result in?

Is there a discussion about what the actual harms are?

They don't know because SpaceX hasn't gone through the procedure to show that they aren't/won't.