During its meeting Wednesday, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission approved ExxonMobil’s request to transfer ownership and operatorship of the Gaviota coast crude oil pipelines.

ExxonMobil bought Lines 901 and 903 — 122 miles of the pipeline system that runs through Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties — from Plains All American last October.

The Planning Commission hearing on Wednesday was for the transfer of ownership to Pacific Pipeline Co., change of guarantor to ExxonMobil Corp. and change of operator to ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. — all of which are subsidiaries of ExxonMobil.

Plains All American owned and operated the pipelines between 1998 and 2015, when the Refugio oil spill occurred on May 19, 2015, spilling more than 120,000 gallons of oil onto the shoreline and ocean near Refugio State Beach.

Plains All American was found to be criminally and civilly liable for the spill, with federal investigations determining the company failed to detect and prevent the leak and external corrosion. Operation of the pipeline has been shut down since.

The Planning Commission also denied a safety valve installation project for the pipeline in April, after multiple lengthy appeal hearings, where opponents of the project were concerned that approving the project would lead to restarting oil production and use of the pipelines.

Representatives for ExxonMobil said the applicants have met all the requirements for the transfer and are “highly qualified to operate, own and financially guarantee the facilities,” ExxonMobil attorney Dawn Sestito said.

She also discussed how ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. has been operating pipelines since 1941.

“If [ExxonMobil Pipeline Company] does not have the skills, training, and resources necessary to operate this facility, it’s not clear that any operator would,” Sestito said.

Opponents of this transfer continued to express concern in the applicant restarting oil production and pipeline use, and that another company, Sable, is looking to purchase the pipeline and restart pipeline operations.

“I know there will be a new process for restart, but it is an issue in the context here because both PPC and Sable Offshore have indicated an interest and, in fact, a right — PPC asserts a vested right to restart the existing pipeline,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center. “It goes back to what is the condition of the pipeline? What’s happening with the corrosion? How do you prevent the risk of an oil spill?”

Sestito said ExxonMobil does not have a corporate affiliation with Sable Offshore Corp., but that it does have interest in a “totally separate entity, a totally unrelated company, called Sable Offshore Energy Inc., which is a federally incorporated Canadian company that operates a project in Halifax, Nova Scotia.”

She added that if the Sable transaction does close, Sable will have to come through this process of applying and requesting ownership and operatorship transfer from the county Planning Commission.

“Approving transfer of these permits is not approval of restart,” Sestito said. “Before PPC can get approval to restart, if it pursues that option, it will have to submit a restart plan to [the Office of the State Fire Marshal] — that has not occurred.”

Opponents and other public commenters urged the Planning Commission to deny the transfer request and argued that Plains All American should be held liable and not be “off the hook,” by transferring ownership of the pipeline.

“We’re very concerned about Plains passing on this damaged pipeline to other entities,” Krop said. “It was Plains that did not adequately maintain and operate the pipeline. It was Plains that did not adequately inspect it. It was Plains that did not respond to the corrosion that was identified during its inspections. It was Plains that did not shut down the pipeline properly when a leak was detected.”

After hearing from public commenters, the commissioners deliberated and most said that, while they want to address the opponents’ concerns, the decision is more of a business transaction between the entities.

“I generally would not call myself a pro-oil person; however, for this case, I’m having a hard time going down the rabbit hole of saying ‘don’t approve it, based on the chance that the line will start up under Exxon,’ for a couple of reasons,” commissioner Laura Bridely said. “This is a business transaction. I don’t see this as restarting the line and that’s why I asked staff about the status of the 901, 903 cases. That’s the time when we can look at more critically updating conditions and looking at what can be the best protection at that point.”

The motion to approve the transfer of ownership and operatorship passed 3-1, with chairman John Parke voting against it, saying Plains All American should remain “on the hook.”