Santa Barbara Residents Rally to Stop Restart of Refugio Oil Spill Pipeline

Remember the Refugio Oil Spill that fouled miles off the beautiful coastline off Santa Barbara and Ventura counties 10 years ago after a badly corroded pipeline ruptured?

Well, Sable Offshore Corporation is working to restart the pipeline that caused the spill — and 100 Santa Barbara residents and advocates on Feb. 25 rallied and testified to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors against a permit transfer from ExxonMobil to Sable Offshore Corp. to prevent the restart.   

The pipeline opponents displayed an array of signs featuring the slogans “Don’t Enable Sable,” “No Offshore Oil,” “Drilling Is Killing,” and “Stop Sable.” They also held placards displaying the devastation caused to the coast by the pipeline rupture.

“The offshore pipeline has been idle since it ruptured 10 years ago, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil in one of California’s worst spill disasters in the past few decade,” reported the Last Chance Alliance (LCA), an alliance of 900+ organizations united to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to end oil drilling in California.  

“Now, Sable is working to restart this corroded pipeline so they can resume pumping oil from three offshore oil platforms to processing facilities. Meanwhile, Sable has been continuing to unlawfully complete work in the California coastal zone to restart a dangerous offshore drilling project,” according to the LCA.

The environmental groups and community members that gathered in Santa Barbara also sent a clear message to Governor Gavin Newson and Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot: “Don’t Enable Sable!”  

After the testimony by opponents of the pipeline, the board decision to approve the pipeline became deadlocked in a 2 to 2 split vote. Environmental groups and Sable Offshore Corporation both claimed a victory, even though no decision was made.

“Environmental groups including the Environmental Defense Center and its clients applauded a Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors decision on Tuesday to NOT approve the transfer of permits to operate defective and highly dangerous oil and gas equipment on the Gaviota Coast,” the Environmental Defense Center said in a statement. “Sable Offshore Corp., a new Texas oil company, applied to take over permits for equipment formerly owned by ExxonMobil, including two huge fossil fuel processing stations and a failed pipeline that broke 10 years ago, causing one of the largest oil spills in California history.’ 

“Hundreds of people including many UCSB students attended the hearing on Tuesday wearing ‘Don’t Enable Sable’ stickers to oppose the transfer,” the group wrote. “Speakers pointed out that Sable has not demonstrated the financial ability to deal with another spill, cannot be trusted to operate the equipment responsibly, and cannot comply with the permit conditions requiring effective corrosion protection for the pipeline – all of which are conditions for transfer of the permits.”

“The Board’s 2-2 vote means the company’s application was not approved and the transfer of permits will not happen. Without permits, Sable cannot operate the facilities unless it works out an agreement with Exxon – plus the company still needs approvals from multiple state agencies,” the group concluded. 

On the other hand, Sable Offshore said in a written statement that the deadlocked vote allows them to move forward, since the prior approval by the Planning Commission still stands. The company claimed it has improved its pipeline safety measures, adding better leak detection and automatic shutoff systems. 

The Board’s split vote followed the announcement by Sable Offshore Corporation that it was one step closer to restarting oil production in the Santa Ynez Unit in federal waters off the Santa Barbara County Coast.

On Dec. 19, the company announced to investors that the California Office of the State Fire Marshal has waived federally required anti-corrosion measures for the Las Flores pipeline system, the Center for Biological Diversity reported.

“The state waivers represent a significant milestone achievement in satisfying the requirements of the federal court ordered consent decree, which includes the granting of these waivers by the OSFM as a condition for restarting the Pipeline,” the announcement claimed.

Sable said at the time it expected to begin hydrotesting the Pipeline in January 2025 in advance of a potential restart of production from the Santa Ynez Unit offshore platforms and the associated Las Flores Canyon processing facilities in the first quarter of 2025. 

The system has been shut down since May 2015, when a badly corroded pipeline owned by the Plains All American Corporation ruptured and released about 450,000 gallons of oil near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County, causing the closure of public beaches and recreational and commercial fishing for months.

“The state waiver is a major step toward Sable Offshore Corp. restarting oil production from the Santa Ynez Unit’s three offshore oil platforms and transporting that oil through pipelines traversing state waters and three California counties,” according to a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Restarting these decades-old defective pipelines is a recipe for disaster,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Shame on California’s fire marshal for waiving important federal safety rules and doing it all behind closed doors without any environmental review. There are tremendous environmental and safety risks to restarting these zombie pipelines and people have a right to be informed about every single step of this process.”

Simmons said federal safety standards require pipelines to be equipped with anti-corrosion measures called cathodic protections. “Inherent design flaws in the Las Flores pipeline system prevent these critical protections from functioning as they should, heightening the risk of a spill. Ineffective cathodic protection was the direct cause of the 2015 oil spill,” she added.

Under federal law, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration  has 60 days to object to the waiver, noted Simmons. And under the Trump Administration an objection to the waiver is unlikely, considering the regime’s current campaign to “Drill, baby, drill.”

“In late September the California Coastal Commission cited Sable for violating the law by conducting unpermitted construction work to restart the pipeline,” said Simmons. “The commission issued a second notice a few days later when construction had not stopped, and issued a cease and desist order in November.”

The Refugio spill devastated 150 miles of the California coast, polluting thousands of acres of shoreline and habitat, killing hundreds of marine mammals and birds, shutting down recreational and commercial fisheries for months and fouling four marine protected areas created under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. 

Below is an action alert from the Oil & Gas Action Network on an upcoming meeting in Santa Barbara:

On March 13th, state agencies will hold a critical town hall meeting in Santa Barbara about a dangerous proposal to restart a corrosion-prone onshore oil pipeline that services three offshore drilling platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel. This pipeline is the same one that caused the horrific 2015 oil spill at Refugio State Beach.

Join us on March 13th!

We are not exaggerating when we say we need YOU there. Our allies have asked for anyone in the state that can make it to Santa Barbara to come out and show our strength against awakening this zombie pipeline. Together, we can show overwhelming public opposition to this risky project — and urge Secretary Crowfoot and state agencies to stand with us in protecting our coast and climate.

Join us at the press conference at 3:00 PM and stay for the public meeting from 4:00 - 6:30 PM. Let’s send a clear message: Stop the restart of the dangerous oil pipeline! 

Federal judge rules that two groups can add new legal claims in lawsuit

Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled in late January that the Center for Biological Diversity and Wishtoyo Foundation can add new legal claims in their case filed in June 2024 challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s unlawful extension of several offshore oil and gas leases in the Santa Barbara Channel.

“The new claims challenge the bureau’s rubber-stamping of two permits that help facilitate restarting oil and gas production at the Santa Ynez Unit. The agency issued the permits in September 2024 within four days of receiving the applications from Sable Offshore Corp. Its approval relied on an environmental analysis completed 40 years ago,” the Center wrote.

“It’s appalling that the federal government wants to greenlight risky offshore oil drilling based on information that’s four decades old,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center. “It’s time to phase out offshore oil drilling and fossil fuels, not revive creaky, long-dormant operations. Federal agencies shouldn’t take any action without carefully examining the numerous harms these operations pose to people, wildlife and the ocean environment. We look forward to presenting our arguments to the court.” 

The former holder of the leases, ExxonMobil, sold the Santa Ynez Unit and its associated infrastructure to Sable in 2024. Before the spill, oil and gas production had been occurring since April 1981. The federal government last completed an environmental analysis on the harms from this drilling project in 1984, according to Monsell.

“The 2024 lawsuit says BSEE violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it extended the leases. The new claims also say the agency’s issuance of the permits and failure to conduct an updated environmental review violated the National Environmental Policy Act,” the groups wrote.

The groups are asking the court to “declare the agency’s actions unlawful, reject the lease extensions and drilling permits, and prohibit the agency from issuing any other permits that facilitate restarting the Santa Ynez Unit unless and until it complies with the law.”

The history of the Refugio Oil Spill and its aftermath is a sordid tale of corporate greed, corruption, overt conflicts of interest, regulatory capture and appalling judicial leniency. Here’s a summary of some of the highlights of my reporting:

Company behind oil spill slapped on the wrist

Restoration and compensation for the spill cost hundreds of millions of dollars and the spill resulted in a felony conviction for the pipeline’s former owner, Plains All American Pipeline.

Yet on April 25, 2019, Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge James Herman sentenced Plains All American to pay $3,347,650 in total fines and penalty assessments for the massive 2015 Refugio Oil Spill — a mere “slap on the wrist.”

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce E. Dudley and environmental groups were disappointed at the time that the Judge did not grant the DA’s request to impose a larger fine of $1.2 billion on the company.

“While the Court made findings including that Plains knew or should have known their pipeline would rupture, stating that ‘[i]t was not a matter of if, but a matter of when,’ Judge Herman denied the People’s request to impose probation and for a significantly larger fine,” according to a statement from the DA’s Office.  

“This assault on our community,” said Dudley, “correctly resulted in a historic felony conviction as a result of the Herculean efforts of Deputy District Attorney Kevin Weichbrod and the extraordinary team of Deputy Attorney Generals led by Brett Morris. Still, without the insight, fortitude and hard work of our jury, this success could have evaded our community.”

The story behind the story: Oil lobbyist chaired marine protected areas panel  

But the story behind the spill goes much deeper. In one of the most bizarre examples of regulatory capture that the mainstream and so-called “alternative” media refused to report on, the pipeline spill fouled four “marine protected areas” created under the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

In a scenario that could only happen in the faux “green” state of California, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” in Southern California at the same time that her organization was a lobbyist for Plains All American.

She also served on the task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast, and North Coast from 2004 to 2012, as well as on a federal marine protected areas panel from 2003 to 2014. She served on these panels as the oil industry was fracking in existing leases off the Southern California Coast.

"Plains All American, the owner of the pipeline, is a member of the Western States Petroleum Association," proudly proclaimed Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), in her blog post responding to the 2015 spill at the time.    

Offshore drilling continues off the Southern California coast as I write this. In fact, two bills to protect California “marine protected areas” from offshore drilling, as well as legislation to stop new offshore drilling off the coast in recent years have been countered by intense — and successful — lobbying efforts by the oil industry.

In 2014, I called Zeke Grader, the longtime executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations who passed away in September 2015, about a bill sponsored by Senator Hannah Beth Jackson to protect a marine protected area, the Vandenberg State Marine Reserve, from oil drilling, due to loopholes in both the California Coastal Sanctuary Act and the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative: www.counterpunch.org/...

Grader, who supported the bill, pointed out how the very need for the bill “highlights what a failure the MLPA Initiative was.”

“If these are true marine protected areas, they why are we allowing drilling and other insults to the ocean in them?” asked Grader. “The whole MLPA Initiative was a phony process that provided an opportunity for Big Green and government bureaucrats to write press releases claiming these were ‘protected areas’ when in reality the fishermen and Tribes got screwed. We should have bans on oil drilling in all of the marine protected areas.”  

Big Oil pressured Senate Committee to kill bill to ban offshore oil drilling leases

As oil wells keep on pumping off the Southern California coast, it is no surprise that oil and gas corporations pumped record amounts of money into fighting California’s environmental justice and climate policies in 2024, according to an analysis by the Last Chance Alliance (LCA).

Big Oil spent a total of $38 million in lobbying expenses, shattering by 31 percent the annual state lobbying record of $26.2 million set in 2017. 

Spending by two groups alone, Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in California, and Chevron, shatter the previous record, coming in at $31.6 million in 2024.

WSPA and Chevron accounted for 83% of the industry’s expenditure. The Western States Petroleum Association spent $17.4 million, while Chevron spent $14.2 million.

The top five 2024 Big Oil influence spenders can be seen below.

CRC/Aera Energy took third place in the Big Oil lobbying spending spree, spending $2.1 million in 2024. Marathon Petroleum placed fourth, spending $1.5 million, while Phillips 66 placed fifth, spending $876,563.

Big Oil crushed its two-year legislative session record as well, spending $65.8 million during the 2023-2024 legislative session. This far exceeds the $44.1 million spent during the 2017-2018 session, the LCA said.

On January 16, 2024, the California Senate Appropriations Committee killed two key climate bills, SB 559 and SB 709, due to strong opposition by the powerful oil industry lobby in California.

SB 559 would end offshore oil drilling leases in Southern California, while SB 709 would establish transparency standards for California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). Of course, WSPA led the opposition to SB 559.

“During the fourth quarter, Chevron disclosed influence spending contributions of nearly $426,000 alone to the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), as well as another over $231,000 to the front group Californians for Energy Independence, and over $77,000 to a Washington, DC-based PR firm named DDC Public Affairs that is notorious for its creation of industry front groups and deception campaigns,” the LCA stated.

“WSPA, for its part, paid over $19,500 to the notorious Chevron-tied law firmGibson Dunn & Crutcher currently defending a handful of its Big Oil member companies in the landmark climate deception lawsuit filed against them by Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2023. It also forked over $33,000 to the legal administrator of its front groups, the Bay Area law firm Nielsen Merksamer,” the group wrote.

“Direct lobbying remained a cornerstone of Big Oil’s strategy in Sacramento. “They concentrated heavily in 2024 on blocking the Make Polluters Pay legislative package, targeting bills like AB 1866 (idle wells reform), AB 2716(reforms for low-producing wells), and AB 3233 (reaffirming localities’ authority to regulate or ban oil drilling)—all of which were ultimately signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom,” the LCA revealed. 

Lobbying is just one tool that Big Oil uses to exert its power and influence in California.

WSPA and Big Oil wield their power in 8 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) creating alliances with labor unions; (6) contributing to non profit organizations; (7) working in collaboration with media; and (8) sponsoring awards ceremonies for legislators and journalists.  

WSPA and Big Oil have for years worked closely with media outlets and more recently have sponsored awards for legislators and journalists. For example, the Western States Petroleum Association was one of the “lede sponsors” of the Sacramento Press Club’s Annual Journalism Awards for the past two years: sacpressclub.org/…

And only this lone journalist has the courage and integrity to challenge the increasingly collaborative arrangement between Big Oil and the media in California.