The California Department of Justice on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging a Trump administration order that called on a private Texas-based firm to revive controversial oil pipelines along the Central Coast despite ongoing state and local objections.
The March 13 order from U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked the Defense Production Act as justification to supersede state laws and restart the disputed pipelines. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court for the Northern District of California, called the order a “breathtaking power grab.” In the complaint, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the order is unconstitutional and unlawful, and asked that the court suspend it and halt the opening of the pipeline.
“The Trump Administration and its oil industry buddies are once again violating the law and trampling on our state’s rights in pursuit of corporate profits,” Bonta wrote in a statement Monday. “California has seen first-hand the devastating environmental and public health impacts of these pipelines rupturing, and there are court-ordered legal requirements in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. But instead of following the law, the Trump Administration and an increasingly desperate Sable [Offshore Corp.] are attempting to ride roughshod over state authority and judicial independence.”
Neither the U.S. Department of Energy nor representatives for Sable immediately responded to a request for comment.
Sable, which now operates the two pipelines in question, resumed oil flow immediately after Wright’s order. The infrastructure is part of an offshore oil operation that had been closed since 2015, when a corroded section of one of the pipelines burst and caused one of the state’s worst oil spills. Sable has said it has since fully repaired the pipelines.
The so-called Santa Ynez Unit, which includes the pipelines, offshore rigs and a processing plant, was under different ownership at the time of the oil spill.
But for more than a year, the company clashed with state and local regulators as it attempted to restart oil drilling and transport. Sable has been accused of repeatedly ignoring the directives of state and local officials, as well as committing criminal acts related to California environmental and coastal laws. The company has denied any wrongdoing.
This is California’s second lawsuit against the Trump administration related to Sable’s pipeline restart. In January, Bonta allegedthe U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration illegally usurped jurisdiction and regulatory authority of Sable’s pipelines away from the state’s fire marshal.
That case remains in litigation.
The state attorney general, on behalf of the Office of the State Fire Marshal and State Parks, also filed an emergency request last week, calling on a federal judge to enforce the federal consent decree agreed upon after the oil spill — and block the Trump administration’s new order.
But a judge on Monday denied that request, finding California’s filings “procedurally improper,” but said the court could rule on the argument through “regularly noticed motions.”
It’s not clear when there might be some clarity in the intensifying legal clash between state and federal officials regarding authority over the pipelines.
Next month, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge is scheduled to rule on an injunction that had halted Sable from restarting the pipelines before the federal order was announced. But any decision in that case is likely to face another legal challenge.
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