California’s battle with an offshore oil firm escalates in a lawsuit against the Trump administration
For more than a year, a Texas oil company has clashed with California officials over controversial plans to restart offshore oil operations off the coast of Santa Barbara County.
Now, California’s dispute with Sable Offshore Corp. has become widespread in the Trump administration.
On Friday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced that he has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration usurped the ability to regulate the Sable oil pipeline in an “unlawful usurpation of power.”
“California has seen firsthand the devastating environmental and public health impacts of offshore oil spills — yet the Trump administration will do nothing to circumvent state laws that protect against these disasters,” Bonta said in a statement Friday. “California will not stand idly by as the President puts California’s beautiful coastline and our public health at risk to increase the profits of his friends in the oil industry.”
Signs warn of an oil pipeline owned by Sable Offshore Corp.
(Al Seib/The Times)
The attorney general’s petition, filed in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenges PHMSA’s effort to consolidate oversight of offshore pipelines and its recent approval of the Sable restart strategy. Along with the State Marshal’s Office, the agency that has been working to review Sable’s restart plan, the attorney general says PHMSA’s decisions violate the Administrative Procedure Act and asked the court to overturn them.
The federal pipeline agency is under the US Department of Transportation. Officials at the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new lawsuit.
Regulatory oversight of pipelines has become a sticking point in a Houston-based company’s plan to rehabilitate three rigs in state waters off the coast of Santa Barbara County.
These pipelines are part of a network that connects offshore fields to an offshore treatment facility near Goleta and continues inland. The two lines in question are located entirely along the coast. One of them exploded in 2015 near Refugio State Beach, causing the largest oil spill in state history.
The previous owner shut down operations after the spill, but Sable announced in 2024 that it plans to restart oil production — a move that has raised fears and concerns among local residents, environmental activists and state and local regulators.
The Trump administration did not immediately intervene, but it showed support for the project last year, as part of its goal to increase US-made oil.
But in December, PHMSA officials reclassified the pipelines as “intermediate” pipelines, citing their connection to offshore rigs along the Outer Continental Shelf in state waters.
Soon after, a federal agency authorized the pipeline to restart, shocking many who had worked for more than a year to ensure Sable complied with state and local laws.
Bonta on Friday called both the findings unfair and illegal, saying the agency “does not have the right to usurp California’s regulatory authority … over potentially dangerous pipelines.”
Sable has clashed several times with state and local officials.
Last year, the California Coastal Commission found that Sable had failed to comply with 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 willfully violating federal environmental laws while working to repair oil pipelines that have remained idle since a major spill in 2015.
The company also remains embroiled in several ongoing lawsuits, including one brought by the Central Coast Water Board – represented by Bonta’s office – which says the company repeatedly failed to follow state laws and regulations aimed at protecting water sources, repeatedly putting “profit over environmental protection.”
Sable Offshore Corp.’s Las Flores Canyon Plant operates in Goleta.
(Al Seib/The Times)
The company denies that it has broken any laws and insists that it has followed all the necessary rules.
Bonta’s new lawsuit does not specifically address Sable’s resume plans, but focuses on the Trump administration’s actions over the past few weeks, including his “attempt to evade federal law.” Bonta says the administration has put the state’s environment and citizens at risk.
Bonta also says the directive change directly contradicts the consent decree reached after the 2015 oil spill, which determined that state firefighters would review and approve any potential restart of coastal pipelines.
“PHMSA’s current position represents a significant departure from this agreement and the way PHMSA has historically viewed pipelines,” Bonta’s office said in a statement.
