[Updated: Fri., Mar. 6, 2026, 4 p.m.]
The Department of Justice issued a sweeping 22-page legal opinion this Thursday asserting that the Defense Production Act empowers President Donald Trump or his Secretary of Energy to approve Sable Offshore’s plans to restart offshore oil production in Santa Barbara County at what’s known as the Santa Ynez Unit, preempting regulatory requirements imposed by numerous state agencies and a federal decree issued in 2020 giving the Office of the State Fire Marshal the last word when it comes to restarting Sable’s corrosion-prone pipeline.
The opinion was written by T. Elliot Gaiser, Assistant Attorney General with the Office of Legal Counsel, in response to complaints charged by Sable Offshore, whose officers claim that the State Fire Marshal, the State Legislature, and other California agencies have collectively acted to impede Sable from starting production at what Gaiser termed the “largest known offshore oil field in the United States.” Gaiser acknowledged he had not independently verified the accuracy of Sable’s complaints, but for the purpose of his opinion, he wrote, “We accept the veracity of the factual statements set forth in Sable’s letter.”
Gaiser, a 35-year-old graduate of the University of Chicago law school, clerked with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, is among the most conservative jurists on the court. He interned with Liberty Central, an ultra-right-wing advocacy group founded by Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas. Gaiser worked for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, and later, when Joe Biden won that election, Gainer penned a speech in which he disputed Biden’s victory. In that speech, he argued that Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, had the legal authority to reject the electors from certain states. Pence’s refusal to do so is what so aroused the wrath of the January 6 rioters, prompting some to rampage through the Capitol in search of Pence while wielding a noose.
Gaiser has issued several legal opinions on behalf of the White House that have put him crosswise with many legal scholars, espousing a more unfettered view when it comes presidential power. For example, Gaiser wrote an opinion arguing that the United States was within its rights blowing up the boats of alleged drug traffickers before any arrest took place, any charges were filed, or any conviction was obtained. He argued Trump could legally treat such drug traffickers as foreign nations about to invade the United States. He argued that such strikes did not fall within the War Powers Act and did not need congressional approval.
Sable has complained that the Fire Marshal has unreasonably withheld the approvals necessary to allow the company to restart its pipeline — which sprung a major leak in 2015, releasing 142,000 gallons of oil along the Gaviota Coast. The company also complained that the Fire Marshal has changed the rules and requirements relating to pipeline repairs required before restart authorization would be granted.
Gaiser asserted an expansive interpretation of the Defense Production Act, claiming that the president himself did not have to activate the Defense Production Act. Members of his executive team — such as the Secretary of Energy — could do so. More expansively still, he asserted that no emergency need actually exist for the bill to be invoked, just that one could exist if the act were not acted upon.
To the extent any state laws or regulations conflict with this invocation, Gaiser said, federal authority trumps state power. Anyone acting in furtherance of any executive order authorized by the Defense Production Act, he stated, would be immune from any liability, even, he stated, if they engaged in criminal conduct.
The Defense Production Act was designed to concentrate executive authority in the person of the president to keep the wheels of industry spinning. It was most famously deployed by President Harry Truman to end a strike by steel workers during the Korean War.
The act has been reauthorized no fewer than 53 times since then and has been used broadly by many presidents to intervene directly in the manufacture, distribution, and procurement of goods and services deemed essential to national defense, even if no war was on the horizon. For example, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden availed themselves of the act during COVID to ensure the materials to manufacture protective N95 masks were in plentiful supply and enough masks were made. Biden was aggressive in his use of the act when it came to the production of materials necessary for the production of solar power. In 2023, Biden used the act to invest $150 million in the procurement of materials necessary for the production of EV batteries. The act clearly identifies the need for a reliable energy supply as a key consideration, but the fine print alludes to the creation of incentives for such production but does not directly mention the act’s authority to ignore state laws and regulations to the contrary.
Environmentalists, for example, have argued that no energy emergency exists, noting that in the past two years, the United States has set new records when it came to oil production. In fact, until the war with Iran, most economists argued that America suffered an oil glut, not a shortage.
A call to the Office of the State Fire Marshal for comment resulted in a returned email from Anthony Martinez, who works for Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office. Martinez was caustic and combative in his response.
“Restarting Sable would contribute about. 0.05 percent to crude oil production — a drop in the bucket that would have zero impact on the oil prices that have sky-rocketed because of Donald Trump’s Iran war,” his statement read. “The Trump Department of Justice opinion on his emergency power is as lawless as his emergency tariffs that the Supreme Court just struck down. / If Trump think he can override California law and an existing court order with the stroke of his pen, we look forward to hearing what the federal court he’s defying has to say.”
In the meantime, he added, Sable needs to continue securing the necessary permits from the multiple state agencies empowered with jurisdictional oversight. As a parting shot, Martinez noted that Sable is currently under a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for allegations of insider trading.
Trump, it should be noted, declared a national energy emergency almost the day he was first sworn in to his second term. In this executive action, Trump asserted, “Insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy.” While nothing in Gaiser’s opinion mentioned the war with Iran or any oil shortages that will trigger, these national security concerns have been raised by Sable many times.
Gaiser noted that a federal consent of 2020 — dictating under what terms and conditions Sable’s highly corroded pipeline could be deemed safe to restart — specifically designated the Office of the State Fire Marshal as the entity empowered to clear the pipeline for restart.
While Gaiser’s memo clearly outlines a legal rationale by which the federal government could preempt what would otherwise be California’s sovereign authority, no one — not Donald J. Trump, not his Secretary of Energy — have yet acted to invoke the Defense Production Act on Sable’s behalf. Still, the stock market responded to the legal opinion with a sharp increase in Sable’s stock value.
Just a week before, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna Geck ruled against Sable by upholding an injunction that barred the company from resuming production until it could first demonstrate it had secured all the necessary permits from the many state agencies with some regulatory oversight. Sable argued that the federal pipeline safety administration had already preempted the Fire Marshal, asserting that all jurisdictional say-so over restart now resided with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and no longer with the State Fire Marshal. This change also came in response to a request by Sable. The state Attorney General and the Fire Marshal have both contested this federal preemption. This matter, Judge Geck opined, would have to be resolved by a panel of federal judges later this summer, when the matter is scheduled to be heard. In the meantime, she ruled, the Fire Marshal still had the last word.
According to a spokesperson for the Fire Marshal, the Fire Marshal’s office is still reviewing the Department of Justice opinion. Likewise, Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, the law firm bird-dogging Sable’s efforts to restart the pipeline, said she was still reviewing her legal options.
“The stakes are huge,” she said. “This would allow the feds to ignore any and all the environmental protections and all the health and safety protections imposed by the state to approve this project.”
Most outrageous, she said, was that the federal government is poised to tell the State Parks Department what it has to do on its own property. Sable needs an easement from State Parks to make repairs on a four-mile stretch of pipeline that runs through a state park along the Gaviota Coast. State Parks has demanded more information from Sable before rendering a decision.
If this morphs into a major jurisdictional showdown between the state and federal governments over Sable Offshore, the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta would play a major role. While Bonta has been consulted, he has yet to issue a statement.
State Assemblymember Gregg Hart — who has passed legislation to require Sable secure a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission — said he’d heard that Bonta’s office was looking into it.
“Nothing happens fast,” he cautioned. “I fully expect this new illegal move from the Trump Administration will be met with another state lawsuit to protect California’s ability to protect our precious coastal environment.”
State Senator Monique Limón stated — through her press spokesperson Olivia Wilson — “This latest opinion by the Department of Justice on superseding state law through the implementation of the Defense Production Act is yet another attempt for this administration to drill along our coastline despite bipartisan opposition.” She added, “This overreach can and will have serious implications throughout the state. Offshore oil drilling has bipartisan opposition because Californians have lived the consequences and impacts when things go wrong. California will continue to fight this overreach in the courtroom.”
Congressmember Salud Carbajal was perhaps more adamant in his disdain and resolve. “There is no legal justification for invoking the Defense Production Act,” he wrote in a text. “This is yet another misguided and illegal action by this corrupt president to reward his contributors in the oil industry — and that no doubt will be shot down by the courts.”
Given the relentlessness with which Sable has been pursuing its project and the animosity the Trump administration has expressed for California’s political culture of environmental regulation, the only thing certain about this project is its uncertainty.
Correction: The headlines for this story have been corrected to note it is the Secretary of Energy, not the Secretary of Defense, who could invoke the Defense Production Act along with the president. This story was also updated to include additional informational about the judge who wrote the opinion, the Defense Production Act, and a response from Governor Gavin Newsom’s office.
