I am "conveniently" leaving it out because it is a vaguely worded "appears..." piece of journalese which contradicts the rest of the article and established fact. Nobody has disputed that SpaceX contacted NOAA first, there's no dispute that they process 40-odd applications every year, no dispute that the policy of licensing remote sensing has been in effect for a long time, amended more than once and that recent moves in the legislature (recent as in a couple of years ago, so SpaceX really had time to notice) have been proposals to relax it rather than to strengthen it.

And yeah, also no dispute that the government grants missions planned by its own agencies a remote sensing license - can't imagine why you would expect it to be otherwise tbh? But agreed, enough indents :-)