Local leaders and environmental groups responded to news that Sable Offshore Corp. has restarted oil production at Platform Harmony and will transport oil through its embattled Santa Barbara County pipelines.
Sable announced on Monday that it started transporting oil from the Las Flores Canyon processing facility on the Gaviota Coast to Pentland Station in Kern County at the direction of U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright.
Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps, who represents the Second District, said the decision erodes local authority. The Board of Supervisors has voted against transferring permits to Sable based on concerns about the pipeline’s integrity.
“This announcement by Secretary Wright is yet another interference in local control and serving the people in our community — and possibly an attempt to distract the public from skyrocketing gas prices due to the war in Iran,” Capps said in a statement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would sue over the federal decision to authorize the restart.
“This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” he said in a statement Friday. “California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment and our $51 billion coastal economy. The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders, and we will see them back in court.”
Sen. Adam Schiff also criticized the news of the restart order on Friday, saying that Californians do not support the decision.
“Donald Trump is using the Iran war as an excuse to restart offshore oil drilling in California at the sites of previous devastating oil spills,” Schiff said in a statement posted on social media, “something he’s been laying groundwork to do since his first day back in office.
“Californians do not want more drilling off our coasts and will fight this at every turn.”
The Texas-based oil company received orders to resume production from President Donald Trump’s administration under the Defense Production Act on Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice issued an opinion on March 3 that the president could order the pipeline to restart under the act and bypass state and local regulations.
Sable has argued that California is experiencing an energy crisis and resuming production would help lower gas prices.
“Sable Offshore is putting California consumers first by increasing domestic supply of crude oil into the California market by approximately 17%, and we look forward to continuing to execute as so ordered by the Defense Production Act executed on March 13, 2026,” said Jim Flores, Sable’s chairman and chief executive officer.
Sable had been working to restart production of the Santa Ynez Unit offshore oil platforms, processing facility and transportation pipelines for about two years.
As part of the restart, Sable plans to reactivate the pipeline that ruptured in 2015 and caused the Refugio oil spill under the previous owner.
The pipeline was owned by Plains All American Pipeline at the time of the spill. ExxonMobil later purchased the pipeline and then transferred it to Sable in 2024.
Sable was prevented from restarting the pipeline because of an injunction agreed to by Plains in the aftermath of the spill. The injunction required any operator to submit a restart plan to the Office of the State Fire Marshal before it could resume production.
The company also has faced resistance from local governments and regulatory agencies, which have expressed concerns about Sable’s conduct and the pipeline’s structural integrity.
Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas, D-Salinas, issued a statement that blamed Trump for the rising costs of gasoline and called the restart of the pipeline a distraction.
“Let’s be clear — drilling off California’s coast won’t lower gas prices, and it won’t clean up the mess Trump created,” Rivas said.
Environmental Groups React
Alex Katz, executive director for the Environmental Defense Center, called the decision by Trump an example of the president putting his friends above the law.
“Unfortunately, it could have disastrous consequences for everybody else,” Katz said.
Katz said he cannot comment on what the decision means for the lawsuits against Sable, but he said the EDC is exploring its options. Katz said the injunction against the pipeline restart is still in place, and he believes the decision to resume production violates the injunction.
He said the immediate concern for the EDC is the risk to the coast, wildlife and the local economy.
However, he said the decision also undermines California’s right to protect its own people.
“Exempting Sable from any laws that are meant to regulate their behavior or any guardrails that are trying to protect the public … invites another disaster in California,” Katz said.
Brady Bradshaw, a senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Office of the State Fire Marshal found that the pipeline still needs additional repairs before a restart. He accused the president of shrugging off those concerns.
“This order is extreme, disturbing, and it could mean that California wildlife and communities pay the price,” Bradshaw said.
For the record: Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article stated the federal decision concerned Platform Holly. The decision focused on Platform Harmony, not Platform Holly.