California has found a new enemy, and this time it isn’t a tailpipe or a gas stove — it’s a domestic energy producer that refuses to die quietly. Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. is locked in an escalating war with Sacramento over its Santa Ynez offshore oil system, and despite a fresh courtroom defeat, the company is making one thing clear: it is not backing down, according to the New York Post.
On June 21, California’s Second District Court of Appeal sided with the California Coastal Commission, upholding a lower-court ruling and an injunction against Sable’s effort to restart the mothballed Santa Barbara pipeline. The Commission has thrown the full weight of the state at the company — cease-and-desist orders, a staggering $18 million penalty, and the argument that Sable’s repairs amount to brand-new development requiring a fresh round of permits.
Sable’s position is simpler: it bought the assets in 2024, it is relying on coastal permits first issued back in 1986, and it is fixing pipe that ruptured in the 2015 Refugio spill so the oil can flow again. The company’s attorney, Jeffrey Dintzer, registered the loss without conceding the war. “Sable is disappointed by the ruling of the Court of Appeal,” he said, noting that “significant issues” remain before any final determination on the legitimacy of the Commission’s orders and penalties.
Here is the part Sacramento can’t stand: the oil is still moving. “With respect to the production of oil from the federally leased offshore platforms, that will continue, as will the flow of oil through the pipeline to Kern County and ultimately to El Segundo, where it is being purchased by Chevron,” Dintzer said. A blue-state regulator can win in court and still lose on the ground — the crude keeps pumping while the lawyers argue.
And the legal road is far from finished. “There are several options. One is that we can appeal to the California Supreme Court. Another is that we could ask for a rehearing in the Court of Appeal,” Dintzer said. Sable is also leaning on parallel cases in the Central District of California and the Ninth Circuit — and, crucially, a federal-preemption argument the U.S. government has backed in court.
That federal card may be the whole ballgame. “We are optimistic that we will prevail in those matters, particularly since the federal government has preempted the State of California’s efforts to forestall our operations,” Dintzer said. Translation: California can pile on the orders and the fines, but it does not get the last word over federally leased platforms in federal waters.
The bigger story is the one Sable’s investors and every other energy firm eyeing the state already understand. California has buried this single producer under more than a half-dozen lawsuits and enforcement actions for the crime of trying to restart American oil production — the same regulatory hostility that has sent businesses, jobs, and capital streaming out of blue states and into Texas and Florida. Strangle enough producers and you don’t get a cleaner economy. You get a more expensive one, and a company list that keeps getting shorter.
For now, Sable is betting the federal courts — and the oil still flowing to Chevron’s El Segundo refinery — will outlast Sacramento’s patience. California is about to learn that not every business it targets is willing to fold.
Source: nypost.com
