Court grants temporary restraining order delaying restart of failed oil pipeline

Environmental Defense Center lawsuit is challenging state waivers of normal pipeline safety requirements with no environmental review or public process

SANTA BARBARA, CA — A Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge today issued a temporary restraining order blocking Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration from approving the restart of a failed oil pipeline on California’s Central Coast – the same one that ruptured in 2015 and caused one of the worst oil spills in state history.

Under Newsom, the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) is poised to allow a Texas oil company to restart the pipeline after waiving normal safety requirements and without conducting any environmental review or public process as required by state and federal law.

“This is the second court order in as many weeks blocking progress on the restart project, which again shows why a full environmental review and an opportunity for public input are critical in this case,” said Linda Krop, Chief Counsel of the Environmental Defense Center (EDC). “Restarting this defective pipeline with no review and no way for the public to weigh in is a danger to our coast, our climate, and people on the Central Coast. At the very least, Governor Newsom should demand that his agencies follow the law and do everything possible to prevent another ecological and economic disaster in our state.”

In April, the Environmental Defense Center and its clients (Get Oil Out!, the Santa Barbara County Action Network, the Sierra Club, and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper) sued the Fire Marshal for failing to conduct an environmental review or hold a public hearing before issuing waivers allowing the pipeline to operate without effective protection against corrosion, which was the cause of the 2015 spill. The Center for Biological Diversity filed a similar lawsuit at the same time.

Sable Offshore Corp., a new Houston-based fossil fuel company, has been trying to restart a major oil and gas operation on the Gaviota Coast formerly owned by ExxonMobil, including three 1980s-era offshore platforms, two large processing facilities in Las Flores Canyon, and the pipeline that ruptured in 2015. That pipeline runs through the Coastal Zone, a state park, neighborhoods in the City of Buellton, under the Santa Ynez and Cuyama Rivers, and through the Los Padres National Forest before ending about 120 miles away in Kern County.

Today’s ruling by Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Donna Geck granted EDC’s request for a restraining order and scheduled a follow-up hearing regarding a preliminary injunction on July 18. Until then, the Fire Marshal and Sable are prohibited from taking any actions in support of restart of the pipeline.

Just last week, a different Superior Court judge issued an injunction preventing Sable from digging up the Coastal Zone and Gaviota State Park in violation of the Coastal Act to repair dozens of defects in the pipeline.

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