Trump administration defends offshore oil drilling as California sues to stop it
The Trump administration on Wednesday defended its order to restart offshore drilling at the site of a major oil spill near Santa Barbara, criticizing California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s move to halt the plan as “political.”
Bonta sued the federal government for allowing a Houston company to resume producing and transporting crude oil from the Santa Ynez Unit and Santa Ynez pipeline system, saying the move violated California law and a court order.
The state’s action marked the 64th time California sued the Trump administration, a parade of legal complaints filed at a rate of more than once a week since Donald Trump began his second term as president last year. The challenges to financial moves and policy changes by the federal government required more than 154,000 work-hours by state lawyers and analysts in just the first nine months of the Trump administration, at a cost of more than $30 million, reporting by The Bee showed.
In the complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, Bonta said a March 13 order by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright directing Sable Offshore Oil Corp. to resume operations was a “breathtaking power grab.”
“This stunning usurpation of California’s police powers, and the powers of the state and federal courts, should be struck down swiftly and certainly,” the complaint said.
But on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Energy responded that California’s restrictions on offshore oil drilling have left the country — and its military — dependent on foreign oil at a time when war is making supplies scarcer and more expensive.
“Despite being home to more than 30 military installations, California has adopted policies that have left our forces—and $4.1 trillion of our Nation’s GDP—dependent on imported oil,” the department said in a statement emailed to The Bee. “This is an untenable threat to our national security, especially in a time of military conflict.”
The Santa Ynez complex, then owned by a different company, spilled more than 100,000 gallons of oil near Refugio State Beach in 2015 after a corroded pipeline burst, prompting the state to shut down operations until certain conditions were met. Federal courts have upheld the state’s position.
Restarting production would increase domestic oil supplies by about 50,000 barrels per day, boosting California’s production by 15%, Wright said. Chevron has already said it would purchase 20,000 barrels, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
“California leaders are attempting to block the secretary’s efforts to restart critical infrastructure and strengthen domestic energy production,” the energy department said in its statement. “California leaders should stop prioritizing political agendas over America’s energy security.”
Bonta’s lawsuit drew praise from environmental groups, which said Wright’s order to resume pumping — and Sable’s move to do so last week — were unlawful.
“Trump left the state no choice but to sue, and I wholeheartedly support this attempt to enforce the law and our rights,” Emily Jeffers, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement to The Bee. “It’s a relief to see California’s leaders standing up for what Californians actually want and defending our coast and ocean wildlife from Trump’s power grab.”
