Capping the last meeting of Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps’s tenure as board chair, the Board of Supervisors held a closed-door special hearing Monday to discuss possible legal actions to stop or slow down Sable Offshore from restarting production at the Santa Ynez Unit located up the Gaviota Coast and transporting any oil pumped from the company’s three offshore platforms via the 120 miles of repaired pipeline that have been under such intense contention. No reportable action reportedly took place as the supervisors reportedly found themselves deadlocked 2-2.
Although there are five members of the board, Supervisor Joan Hartmann had been recused at the instigation of Sable Offshore because her Buellton home is located close enough to Sable’s pipeline to constitute a conflict of interest, according to the state’s Fair Political Practice Committee.
Giving the deliberations a sense of suspense and urgency, the federal agency that only recently asserted jurisdictional authority over the pipeline on safety and inspections had issued a special emergency restart permit to the company just two days before Christmas. Efforts by Sable’s environmental opponents — the Environmental Defense Center (EDC) and the Center for Biological Diversity — sued that agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and sought to obtain an emergency restraining order blocking that permit. This motion was denied by a two-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, but they scheduled an expedited non-emergency hearing on January 26 to hash out the underlying legal issues over which the litigating parties differ.
Environmental advocates had urged the supervisors to take legal actions to stop Sable from restarting in light of the board’s December 16 vote to deny Sable’s request for a transfer of title and permits from ExxonMobil, from which Sable purchased the Santa Ynez Unit in February 2024. In denying the transfer, the supervisors — even the vociferously pro-oil supervisor Steve Lavagnino — cited Sable’s short but storied history of noncompliance with regulations and agencies that Sable insists have no jurisdiction.
But there were not three votes to take the oil company to court over this while there was much concern expressed over the financial risk the county — already looking at multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls — might face should it lose the multimillion-dollar takings claim Sable has filed.
Ever since the emergency restart permits were issued, there’s been considerable hubbub and uncertainty whether Sable has, in fact, restarted production at its Santa Ynez Unit, shut down since May 2015 when 142,000 gallons of crude oil spilled out of a ruptured pipeline near Refugio Beach. County Fire Chief Garrett Huff reportedly told Supervisor Capps that Sable has agreed to give his department 24-hour advance notice before restarting production.
EDC attorney Linda Krop has filed papers demanding that Superior Court Judge Donna Geck remember that she had ordered — in a separate but related legal action — the oil company to provide 10 days’ notice before restarting production.
On Tuesday morning, criminal arraignment proceedings against the Houston-based oil company for alleged violations of state environmental law — unearthing pipelines that cross creeks and streams to make repairs without permits — brought by the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office were again postponed. Typically, arraignment proceedings involve little more than a simple declaration of guilty or not guilty. Given that the defendant involved — Sable Offshore — is a corporation, bail is not an option or consideration. The next arraignment is scheduled for February 24.
