California sued the Trump administration for approving plans to restart two oil pipelines along the state’s coast, escalating a fight over the administration’s rollback of regulatory barriers to offshore oil drilling after decades of bans, the Associated Press reported.
The lawsuit was filed Friday by California, challenging federal approval for a project by Sable Offshore Corp. to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara, where offshore activity was damaged by a 2015 oil spill.
Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state oversees pipelines that run through Santa Barbara and Kern counties. “The federal administration has no right to usurp California’s regulatory authority,” Bonta said at a news conference, adding, “We’re taking them to court to draw a line in the sand and to protect our coast, beaches and communities from potentially hazardous pipelines.”
A U.S. Department of Transportation agency that approved Sable’s plan pushed back on the lawsuit. A spokesperson with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said, “Restarting the Las Flores Pipeline will bring much needed American energy to a state with the highest gas prices in the country.”
The AP reported that Sable did not respond for comment on the lawsuit.
The dispute comes as Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term to reverse former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development, and the federal administration in November announced plans for new offshore oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts, drawing criticism that the plans could harm coastal communities and ecosystems.
Bonta pointed to the 2015 burst of a pipeline Sable wants to restart, saying it spilled oil along the Southern California coast. The AP described the spill as the state’s worst oil spill in decades, with more than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushing out and blackening beaches for 150 miles from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, while polluting habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles and killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins. The AP said drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered.
Sable has faced multiple legal challenges and has said it is determined to restart production even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles nearest to shore, while the platforms would be 5 to 9 miles offshore, according to the AP.
Environmental Defense Center executive director Alex Katz said: “It’s crazy that we are even talking about restarting this pipeline.” The AP reported that Katz leads a Santa Barbara group formed in response to a catastrophic 1969 California oil spill.
California Assemblymember Gregg Hart, a Democrat representing Santa Barbara, said the federal government’s approval ignores lessons the community learned from the 2015 spill. In a statement, Hart said, “California will not allow Trump and his Big Oil friends to bypass our essential environmental laws and threaten our coastline.”
The AP said California has been reducing fossil-fuel production in favor of clean energy for years, and that Santa Barbara County elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.
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