For more than a year, a Texas oil firm has clashed with California officials over controversial plans to restart offshore oil operations along the Santa Barbara County coast.
Now, California’s feud with Sable Offshore Corp. has spread to the Trump administration.
On Friday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced that he had filed suit against the federal government, alleging that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had usurped jurisdiction of Sable’s oil pipelines in an “unlawful power grab.”
“California has seen first-hand the devastating environmental and public health impacts of coastal oil spills — yet the Trump Administration will stop at nothing to evade state regulation which protects against these very disasters,” Bonta said in a statement Friday. “California will not stand idly by as the President endangers California’s beautiful coastline and our public health to increase profits for his fossil fuel industry friends.”
The attorney general’s petition, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals’ Ninth Circuit, challenges PHMSA’s attempt to federalize oversight of the onshore pipelines and its recent approval of Sable’s restart plan. Along with the Office of the State Fire Marshal, the agency that had been working to review Sable’s restart plan, the attorney general argues that PHMSA’s decisions violate the Administrative Procedure Act and asked the court to overturn them.
The federal pipeline agency falls under the U.S. Department of Transportation. Officials with the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new case.
Regulatory oversight of the pipelines has become a major sticking point in the Houston-based company’s plan to revive three drilling rigs in federal waters off Santa Barbara County’s coast.
The pipelines are part of a network that connects the offshore platforms to to an onshore processing plant near Goleta and then further inland. The two lines in question are located completely onshore. One of them burst in 2015 near Refugio State Beach, causing one of the biggest oil spills in the state’s history.
The former owner shuttered operation after that spill, but Sable announced in 2024 that it planned to restart oil production — a move that has sparked fear and concern among locals, environmental activists and state and local regulators.
The Trump administration didn’t immediately get involved, but it did signal its support for the project last year, as part of its goal to increase U.S.-made oil.
But in December, PHMSA officials reclassified the pipelines as “interstate” pipelines, citing their link to offshore rigs along the Outer Continental Shelf in federal waters.
Soon after that, the federal agency approved the pipelines for a restart, shocking many who had been working for more than a year to ensure Sable’s compliance with state and local laws.
Bonta on Friday called both those findings incorrect and illegal, saying the federal agency had “no right to usurp California regulatory authority … of potentially hazardous pipelines.”
Sable has repeated clashed with state and local officials.
Last year, the California Coastal Commission found that Sable had failed to adhere to the state’s Coastal Act despite repeated warnings and fined the company $18 million. In September, the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the company, accusing it of knowingly violating state environmental laws while working on repairs to oil pipelines that have sat idle since a major spill in 2015.
The company also remains entangled in several ongoing lawsuits, including one brought by the Central Coast Water Board — represented by Bonta’s office — that alleges the company repeatedly failed to follow state laws and regulations intended to protect water resources, repeatedly putting “profits over environmental protections.”
The company denies that it has broken any laws and insists that it has followed all necessary regulations.
Bonta’s new lawsuit doesn’t directly address Sable’s restart plans, but focuses on Trump administration actions over the last few weeks, including its “attempt to evade state regulation.” Bonta argues the administration has put the state’s environment and residents at risk.
Bonta also argues that the change in oversight directly contradicts a consent decree reached after the 2015 oil spill, which determined the state fire marshal would review and approve any possible restart of the onshore pipelines.
“PHMSA’s current position represents a significant departure from this agreement and the way in which PHMSA historically viewed the pipelines,” Bonta’s office said in a statement.
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