California's fight over pipeline tests state's right to push back against Washington during war

Crude oil pumped from the depths of the Pacific Ocean is flowing for the first time in more than a decade through a pipeline that crosses California state park land after the Trump administration defied state officials to restart drilling off Santa Barbara, calling it essential to national security.

State officials call it trespassing and are asking a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge at a hearing Monday to order Sable Offshore Corp. to stop using the pipeline — which snakes for 4 miles (6 kilometers) through a portion of Gaviota State Park — and to remove it.

The pipeline system owned by the Texas firm had been idle since one of its pipelines ruptured in 2015 and caused one of California’s worst oil spills, blackening beaches for 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. The spill polluted a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used a Cold War-era provision March 13 to direct Sable to restart production, saying shoring up domestic oil supplies is needed to lower gas prices amid the Iran war as the Islamic Republic continues to squeeze a vital shipping channel through which one-fifth of the world’s oil travels. He noted “more than 60% of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz — presenting serious national security threats.”

The litigation is the latest salvo in an escalating legal battle that is testing states' power to challenge Washington’s wishes, even during wartime, as the Trump administration rolls back regulations seen as unfriendly to its plans for more coastal oil drilling.

Energy secretary says drilling needed to replace foreign oil

Until the federal intervention, Sable had been unable to sell a drop of oil as the litigation piled up to stop its operation, which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

Opposition to the project has been fierce in Santa Barbara, where a 1969 oil spill helped give rise to the modern environmental movement after local California communities hadn’t been given any voice in decisions about offshore drilling.

“I think it's an attack not only on our democracy but also the will of the people who live here,” said youth activist Ethan Maday, 15, of the federal intervention.

A state judge last year ordered the operation stopped until Sable proved it was in compliance with state regulations. The Santa Barbara District Attorney also filed felony criminal charges against Sable, accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife as it repaired the pipeline system.

Sable said it has the proper permits.

The U.S. Energy Department said Sable will help California’s in-state oil production jump by 15%, which will replace almost 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude oil each month.

But the crude pulled out by Sable is heavy and costly to refine, said Paasha Mahdavi, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who researches the impact of oil and gas resources on governance and environmental politics. The estimated production of 50,000 barrels a day is also a drop in the bucket on the global scale and will have no impact on domestic gas supplies or prices, he said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has filed two lawsuits over the project, said "the U.S. already produces significantly more oil and gas than we use — it’s a completely fabricated claim intended to curry favor with the oil industry.”

The energy department and Sable did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the assertions by state officials.

Jim Flores, Sable’s chairman and chief executive officer, said April 20 that the pipeline had already produced more than 1 million barrels of oil.

“We are working tirelessly to provide American oil from American soil to consumers in California and the U.S. military,” he said.

When the Cold War-era law has been used

The administration invoked the Defense Production Act to restart the drilling. The law was signed by President Harry S. Truman during the Korean War to give the president broad authority to mobilize resources during a crisis.

Two decades ago, both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush invoked it to ensure that electricity and natural gas shippers continued supplying California utilities to cope with an energy crisis. Former President Joe Biden used it to boost crucial supplies to U.S. solar manufacturers to fight climate change.

“But it’s never been used so brazenly against a set of state regulations, not to mention state litigation,” Mahdavi said. “That’s what makes this unique and perhaps why they used it after the war started. Because under normal circumstances it really would not have made it past the courts.”

California argues it has a say over what operates on state land

The trespassing litigation is based on property rights and federal overreach, both touchstones of conservatism, said Deborah Sivas, a professor at Stanford Law School. State officials say permission to use the pipeline on state land expired in 2016, which Sable disputes.

“It’s not out in the ocean, in federal waters. This is actually on state property. We have a say on that — you can’t just override that,” Sivas said.

Sivas believes the administration’s expansion of the 1950 law is aimed at ushering in its five-year plan to give the oil industry access to new offshore areas. Courts have been leery to second-guess an emergency order from the federal government, especially amid a war, she said.

“This broad expansion of the act, where they’re saying we’re just going to preempt all of state law, we’re going to use it to just crush state law and order what we want going forward — it’s anxiety producing," Sivas said.

A few weeks after Wright's order, the Trump administration exempted oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said lawsuits by environmentalists — who warned drilling could doom a rare whale species and harm other marine life -- threatened to hobble domestic energy supplies amid the Iran war.

The administration also approved an ultra deep-water drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico, the company’s first new oil field developed in the Gulf since the nation’s worst offshore oil spill in 2010.

As California officials fight back, the oil flows

This month, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna Geck kept in place an injunction she imposed last year after the California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over allegations of working without the proper permits.

Sable told the court that Wright's order supersedes all that. The U.S. Department of Justice is also asking the court to modify or end a binding federal court decree signed after the 2015 spill that gave the state the final say over the restart of the operation, the company said.

Sable said it is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in financial damage and taking legal action “to curb state and county regulatory overreach.”

Geck again ordered Sable to adhere to state and local regulations. In her ruling, she wrote that case law “strongly implies that the (Defense Production Act) order, by itself, does not permit the violation of applicable state regulatory law.”