California sues US Dept of Energy over Sable oil pipeline restart

By David Thomas

March 23 (Reuters) - California Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Monday he has sued the U.S. Department of Energy to stop it from using a Cold War-era law to restart the long-disputed Sable Offshore SOC.N pipeline system linking the Santa Ynez offshore platform to California refineries.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright earlier this month restarted the pipelines using powers granted to him by President Donald Trump through an executive order that invoked the Defense Production Act to supersede state laws.

“We won’t let this outrageous federal overreach go without a fight,” Bonta said in a press conference Monday. Bonta alleged Wright’s restart order violates state law, state court orders and a settlement approved by a federal court.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Department of Energy and Sable Offshore did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed in San Francisco federal court.

California is asking the court to rule that Wright's restart order violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution, and to prohibit the Energy Department from relying on the order to operate the Santa Ynez platform and its pipelines.

The Santa Ynez platform was shut down due to a 2015 spill that dumped more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil ‌into the Pacific Ocean and onto beaches near Santa Barbara.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of conflicts between Trump, who wants to supercharge domestic fossil fuel production, ‍and California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has championed his state's ambitious climate change agenda.

Wright's order came as fuel prices have surged across the globe due to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Sable said earlier this month it began shipping hydrocarbons from Las Flores Canyon to Pentland Station on March 14, and that it expects to sell 50,000 barrels per day by April 1.

In January, California sued over the Trump administration's decision to reclassify the Sable pipelines as "interstate" even though they run between two California counties.

That lawsuit is still pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.