The California Coastal Commission served legal notice on Sable Offshore that unless the embattled oil company sought a coastal development permit for its recently resumed oil production off the coast of Gaviota, the commission would file a cease-and-desist order to force the company to shut down production.
This marks a significant escalation in the commission’s ongoing legal and rhetorical warfare with Sable, which restarted oil production off the Gaviota Coast this March after a 10-year production shutdown because of the Refugio Oil Spill of May 2015.
In its letter of notice, commission lawyers used unusually hospitable language, encouraging Sable to take a more cooperative and conciliatory approach in securing the necessary state permits than it has during its past 18 months of legal head-butting with various state agencies — or else.
As characterized by the New York Post, Sable responded with a wave of its middle finger to the commission, insisting that the state agency has even less jurisdictional authority now than when the company first started shining it on a year and a half ago. Sable contends the federal government, not the commission or any state agency, now has the first and last word over any oil it pumps from federal waters off the coast of California. That’s because late last December, Sable asked the federal agency in charge of pipeline safety to say just that. That agency did and then issued Sable an emergency permit to allow it to begin pumping.
Prior to that, the Office of the State Fire Marshal was exclusively empowered to make that call. But when last October, the Fire Marshal told Sable not yet, the company cried foul — claiming to be the victim of a political hit — and went shopping around for more powerful friends in higher places. The Trump White House embraced Sable’s crusade. This spring, the Department of Justice decreed it was a matter of national security for Sable to begin production; shortly thereafter, the Secretary of the Department of Energy affirmatively ordered Sable to start pumping.
Perhaps the real question confronting the Coastal Commission and its threatened cease-and-desist order is “You and what army?” Over the next few months, attorneys for the State of California, Sable, the federal government, and attorneys representing local environmental organizations opposing Sable will be duking it out over these highly fraught jurisdictional issues in federal appeals court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Two weeks ago, a federal judge heard arguments on some of these matters, but by the day’s end, even he was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of separate legal actions that he buried his head in in his hands and shook his head. Even he had a hard time keeping it all straight.
