For the first time in more than a decade, offshore oil is again flowing through a controversial network of pipelines that run from California’s Central Coast to Kern County. .
Following an executive order from President Trump last week, Sable Offshore Corp. announced Monday that it resumed oil flow through pipelines that run across Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties. The infrastructure is part of an offshore oil operation that the Houston-based company has been trying to restart for more than a year.
The resumption of oil flow marks the latest escalation in a long-running battle between between California officials and the Trump administration over energy policy and safeguards.
The network had been shuttered since 2015, when a corroded pipe burst and caused one of the state’s worst oil spills. The so-called Santa Ynez unit was under different ownership at the time.
Sable had struggled to secure necessary approvals and permits from California regulators to restart the offshore oil operation. In the process, Sable has been accused of repeatedly ignoring the directives of officials, as well as criminal acts related to California environmental and coastal laws.
On Friday, Trump invoked the the Cold War-era Defense Production Act and said that the nation’s energy needs superseded state and local regulations.
It’s a move that California officials have derided and already started to fight.
On Saturday, California’s Department of Parks and Recreation demanded that Sable “immediately remove the pipeline” from where it runs through Gaviota State Park, formally denying the company’s application to operate the line through that protected area.
The agency said it decided to cease its review of Sable’s project “due to Sable’s excessive drain on state resources and incompatibility of their project with the park unit.” The letter said the agency will “pursue legal action to defend the state’s property’s rights” if Sable doesn’t respond within 10 days.
Sable acknowledged the letter in its announcement Monday, but noted that it had filed a new lawsuit against California State Parks the day before. The suit, filed in federal court, seeks to confirmation that Sable has the right to operate through the park under the executive order.
Sable remains tied up in several lawsuits with California officials and environmental groups over the pipelines, but this would be the first to test the authority of the Defense Production Act.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has called Trump’s use of the Defense Production Act “an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting.”
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental nonprofit that has pushed for more oversight of Sable’s work, called the use of the DPA “radical and unprecedented.”
“The cynical misuse of a national security law for the benefit an oil company that has repeatedly broken the law is a shocking development, even from this administration,” Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the nonprofit said in a statement. “The courts shouldn’t put up with this brazen abuse of power. … We’ll keep fighting as hard as we can to protect Santa Barbara’s coast and end offshore drilling in the state once and for all.”
Sable officials and the Trump administration argue the project is essential for national security and will benefit consumers.
“Sable Offshore is putting California consumers first by increasing domestic supply of crude oil into the California market by approximately 17% and we look forward to continuing to execute as so ordered,” Jim Flores, Sable’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We look forward to working closely with the Department of Energy in fully complying with the DPA and working with the Trump administration to take all necessary steps to deliver the energy necessary for the security and defense of the country.”
Sable had resumed production at one of its three offshore oil platforms last May, but was unable to transport the oil through the onshore pipelines due to ongoing legal and regulatory blocks.
The company said it had 540,000 barrels of processed crude oil in storage as of this weekend, and it planned to bring its two other offshore rigs — all located in federal waters — online by June.
Sable plans to begin sales by April 1 at a rate of 50,000 barrels per day.
“Sable is fully staffed and will continue to implement the conditions of the emergency special permit,” the company wrote in its update.
The post Oil flows through Santa Barbara coastal pipeline for first time in decade amid Trump fight with California appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
