The California Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Monday challenging the Trump administration’s order telling a Texas-based private firm to revive controversial oil pipelines along the Central Coast despite state and local objections.
A March 13 order from U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked the Defense Production Act as justification to override state laws and restart the controversial pipelines. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court for the Northern District of California, called the order a “breathtaking power grab.” In the complaint, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the order is unconstitutional and unlawful, and asked the court to suspend it and block the opening of the pipeline.
“The Trump administration and its oil industry allies are once again violating the law and trampling on our states’ rights in the pursuit of corporate profits,” Bonta said. wrote in a statement monday. “California has seen firsthand the devastating environmental and public health impacts of these pipeline breaks, and there are court-ordered legal requirements to ensure this does not happen again. But instead of following the law, the Trump Administration and an increasingly desperate Sable (Offshore Corp.) are attempting to attack state authority and judicial independence.”
Neither the U.S. Department of Energy nor representatives of Sable immediately responded to requests for comment.
Sable, which now operates the two related pipelines, resumed oil flow shortly after Wright’s order. The infrastructure is part of an offshore oil operation that had been shut down since 2015, when a damaged section of one of the pipelines burst and caused one of the state’s worst oil spills. Sable said it has completely repaired the pipelines.
The so-called Santa Ynez Unit, which includes pipelines, offshore rigs and a processing plant, was under different ownership at the time of the oil spill.
But for more than a year, the company clashed with state and local regulators as it attempted to resume drilling and transporting oil. Sable has been accused of repeatedly ignoring instructions from state and local officials, as well as committing criminal act Relating to California environmental and coastal laws. The company has denied any wrongdoing.
This is the second California lawsuit against the Trump administration related to Sable’s pipeline restart. In January, Bonta alleged that the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had illegally usurped jurisdiction and regulatory authority over Sable’s pipelines away from the state fire marshal.
That matter is in litigation.
The state attorney general, on behalf of the Office of the State Fire Marshal and State Parks, also filed an emergency request last week, asking a federal judge to enforce the federal consent decree agreed to after the oil spill and block the Trump administration’s new order.
But a judge on Monday rejected that request, finding California’s filing “procedurally unfair” but saying the court could rule on the arguments through “routinely reviewed motions.”
It’s unclear when some clarity might come in the escalating legal standoff between state and federal officials over authority over pipelines.
Next month, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge is scheduled to rule on an injunction that prevented Sable from restarting the pipelines before the federal order was announced. But any decision in that case may face another legal challenge.
