Enviros Beat Sable Oil 2-2

Off-Shore Oil Restart Slowed by Santa Barbara Supervisors Tie Vote

Yale was ahead by 16 points at the last minute of this November 1968 game, but Harvard came back to even the score in those 60 seconds. Naturally Tommy Lee Jones, the embodiment of hangdog masculine executive panache, played for Harvard. We don't pretend to know what side Jones would root for in the fight between Sable Offshore oil and the enviros over the re-opening of Exxon's old oil and gas plant up the coast. In fact, we're not sure what the 2-to-2 tie at the board of supervisors this Tuesday meant. The real problem is that neither does the county counsel who briefed the supervisors before hand. Stay tuned; this one is going into sudden death overtime. | Credit: Youtube

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IS SABLE ABLE? Up until this Tuesday, the best sports headline ever written was “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29!” But after the county supervisors endured six hours this Tuesday, February 25, masticating the legal details of Sable Offshore’s latest maneuver, I’d say the new version should read, “Enviros Beat Sable Oil Company 2-2.”

Like all headlines, this one is more sensational than strictly accurate. Still, it’s plenty true enough. Sometimes, the tie does not go to the baserunner, and close is only good enough in horseshoes.

Oils well that ends well? Not at Refugio during the 2015 pipeline oil spill. We learned the hard way that pipeline corrosion monitoring machine gave too many readings that dangerously overstated the soundness of the pipeline walls. | Credit: Paul Wellman (file)

The headline, of course, refers to Sable Offshore’s efforts to restart Exxon’s old oil and gas processing plant up the Gaviota coast. That operation includes 122 miles of old and corroded pipeline that’s needed to send that oil to refineries outside Bakersfield. The pipeline has been shut down for 10 years, ever since it sprang its now-infamous 142,800-gallon leak into the waters off Refugio.

But that was under different owners and different management.

Unlike football games, no mandatory overtime exists for when the county supervisors deadlock. To be honest, no one who actually knows anything pretends to know what the 2-2 tie means going forward — and how many lawsuits are likely to be filed in the interim.

It’s all highly speculative. But one thing is certain: Legally, the vote qualifies as a “non-action.” As a practical matter, it’s hard to sue someone — like the county supervisors — for an action they didn’t take. (Supervisor Joan Hartmann cannot vote on Sable because the existing pipeline runs too close to her personal residence.)

As another practical matter, it means the enviros effectively blocked Sable from clearing a significant procedural hurdle in its considerable hurry to secure all the permits it needs to restart the plant.

Although Sable would publicly express satisfaction with the vote, right now, the tie qualifies as a major hiccup — perhaps seismic in its implications, perhaps meaningless — for the oil company that was only formed in 2020.

If nothing else, the vote raises a lot more questions than it answers about Sable’s path forward. Questions, invariably, take time to answer. And time is not Sable’s friend. Sable is contractually obligated to get the plant up and operating by 2026. If it doesn’t, Exxon — which loaned Sable $700 million to buy its old operation — is entitled to demand its money back and repossess its old facilities.

Tick, tock.

Supervisor Laura Capps said there were too many “red flags” for her to approve the transfer of title and permit from Exxon to Sable Offshore. Capps has been lead to believe the 2-2 vote meant the transfer would not go through. Sable Offshore is arguing that the tie means just the opposite. As of Friday, the county counsel’s office was still reviewing a board action that took place Tuesday afternoon. How could they not know? | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Up for grabs Tuesday was whether the Planning Commission screwed up last fall when it approved — by a 3-1 vote — the transfer of title and permits from Exxon to Sable. The enviros challenged that approval, arguing Sable had failed to demonstrate it had the financial wherewithal to pay the cleanup costs if or when the old, corroded pipeline popped another leak.

Such documentation is mandated by an ordinance the supervisors passed in 2002 to prevent fly-by-night operators from getting a toehold in our offshore oil patch. Santa Barbara might be the only place on Planet Earth where such requirements exist.

Fueling a raging sense of existential urgency is that this is the first, last, and only word the county supervisors — and, by extension, the Santa Barbara public — will ever have over this project.

From where I sit, Sable should be credited with an assist in the enviro victory. While the company didn’t quite snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it did itself no favors with its aggressive, talk-to-the-hand posture.

On the big issue of whether Sable had enough liability insurance to cover the clean-up costs of a major spill, the company claimed it had $401 million. But county planners only saw certificates attesting to this fact; they never saw the actual policies themselves. And they never even asked to see them.

As anyone who has had to deal with the aftermath of a disaster — such as wildfires — knows, the fine print really matters when dealing with insurance companies.

Roy Lee, the newest county supervisor called the idea of re-suing pipelines that already sprung a serious leak “Just crazy.” The pipelines involved are 122 miles long. On these pipelines are about 122 corrosion clusters, otherwise known in the boiz as “anomolies.” Guess what, 122 people signed up to speak at the board of supervisors meeting this Tuesday. If I were a numerologist I might know what this confluence of 122s means. | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Plains All American, the prior pipeline owner, the one responsible for the 2015 spill, is still fighting its insurance carrier in court — 10 years after the fact. Reportedly, Plains has recovered only a small fraction of the $870 million it claims was the cost to clean up and pay off all the legal settlements. Even assuming this number is grossly inflated, it remains disturbingly bigger than the $401 million Sable said it has.

Why not just show us the policies? Wouldn’t that have eliminated some of the “red flags” Supervisor Laura Capps cited in voting against the transfer. Wouldn’t such details have mollified the concerns of Supervisor Roy Lee, who termed the idea of restarting the old pipeline as “just insane”?

Sable and the county insist that the fine print of the county’s 2002 anti-fly-by-night measure preclude them from getting into Sable’s underwear drawer. Even if that’s true — and there’s good reason to believe it’s not — nothing stopped Sable from voluntarily sharing that info with the public and with our elected officials. Bad call.

So now what? Will state agencies with more direct authority over Sable’s restart plans give a damn that the county transfer of title from Exxon to Sable was not approved? Or will they give Sable the green light anyway? Or can Sable just use Exxon’s existing permits? Or will it sue the county?

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe Sable has bigger problems, like how California State Parks is now threatening to hold up the four-mile easement Sable desperately needs through Gaviota State Park unless there’s more aggressive environmental review. Either way, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. And in this opera, the Fat Lady hasn’t begun to even warm up yet.

Getting back to dumb sports metaphors, I am tempted to describe what happened Tuesday as “a shoestring tackle” executed by the enviros. But that begs the bigger question: Are such tackles possible if the tackled players are wearing loafers?