Launching his most blunt, public attack on Sable Offshore and the Trump administration since the federal government gave the Texas oil company the green light to restart oil production two weeks ago, State Attorney General Rob Bonta declared, “I call BS,” as he announced he was suing the Trump administration over what he called the “illegal” restart of operations in Santa Barbara County.
Bonta’s comments came at a press conference Monday, March 23, held two weeks after Sable had begun oil and gas production at the Santa Ynez Unit along the Gaviota Coast. The entire unit, including its offshore drilling platform and pipelines, had been closed for the past 10 years after one of those badly corroded pipelines sprung a leak in 2015, releasing an estimated 142,000 gallons of crude. One week ago, Bonta filed an emergency lawsuit intending to block the federal order commanding Sable Offshore to refire its plant.
“We won’t let this outrageous federal overreach go without a fight,” he declared.
This marks the 65th case Bonta has filed against the Trump administration since last January; of those, Bonta claims he’s prevailed in 80 percent. Bonta called Trump’s claim of a national energy emergency “BS” for invoking the Defense Production Act to order Sable to refire the Santa Ynez Unit. The United States, he said, is now exporting more oil than ever. There is no emergency, he said. He was likewise dismissive that Sable’s production would make a dent in demand, terming the company’s capacity “negligible.”
Bonta did not address the White House claim that California refineries are shutting down at an alarming rate because of a lack of enough product to remain economically viable. This, Sable and the White House argue, puts military installations along the coast at risk of running out of fuel. Bonta said Trump exceeded his legislative and constitutional limits in ordering Sable to put its oil into the badly corroded and much repaired pipelines.
After the 2015 pipeline spill — which Bonta described in detail — a federal judge decreed that the pipeline could be restarted only with the blessing of the Office of the State Fire Marshal. Thus far, the California Fire Marshal has declined to bestow this blessing, faulting Sable for not doing all the repairs necessary. Sable appealed to the Trump administration, claiming the Fire Marshal caved in to the political pressure exerted by environmental non-governmental agencies. Trump intervened. If Sable wanted relief from a federal order, Bonta argued, Trump and Sable needed to get those changes through the courts. To do otherwise would violate the separation of powers called for by the United States Constitution.
