Santa Barbara is no stranger to oil spills. The 1969 spill off the coast First major oil spill in U.S. history This later led to the creation of Earth Day. This free-spirited seaside community, where people gather to eat freshly caught sea urchin, relies heavily on tourism, which in turn depends on the community’s pristine beaches. Santa Barbara, like much of California, has clearly moved away from considering oil production as part of its economic future.
As a result, some of the offshore oil rigs visible off the coast are not in use, and some are awaiting complete decommissioning. And when the pipeline, now known as the Sable Pipeline, burst in 2015, largely due to corrosion, local residents called for a complete halt to further use.
But when President Trump returned to the White House last year, he made it clear that the United States was open to offshore oil drilling again. Announced by the Ministry of the Interior. Increase in lease sales in federal waters off California. And the ongoing war in Iran is becoming more and more intense. The administration has allowed fossil fuel extraction to double as a national security measure..
At that time, oil and gas companies took these tips to heart and began exploring ways to enter the market. In 2024, ExxonMobil transferred ownership of three dormant oil platforms and pipelines to Houston-based Sable Offshore Corporation, which resumed production in 2025.
But getting Santa Barbara County to agree to rehabilitate the decommissioned pipeline needed to transport newly produced oil overland has been an uphill battle.
Sable was fined $18 million in April 2025 for failing to comply with two orders to stop work on the pipeline. Last fall, a judge upheld a ruling that the company needed a new permit. In response, Sable filed a lawsuit seeking $347 million in damages for delaying the California Coastal Commission’s efforts. The case is still unsolved.
But something else happened last fall. Energy Secretary Chris Wright accused California Governor Gavin Newsom on Twitter of “preventing oil production off the coast of California from reaching refineries in our state, making gas prices even higher for Californians!” The Interior Department followed suit with a proposal to begin new leases in federal waters off the coast of California for the first time since 1984. Then, in March, President Trump issued an executive order expanding the scope of the Defense Production Act of 1950, following which Sable directed the DOE to restart operations on the pipeline, which had not yet been repaired. So it happened.
