Padilla, Schiff, Carbajal Launch Investigation into Sable Offshore’s Politicized Efforts to Restart Oil Drilling Operations Off Santa Barbara Coast
Padilla and his colleagues: “We urge you to pause and consider the long-term legal and financial ramifications of collaborating with the Trump administration to circumvent California law.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), along with U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.-24) and members of the California congressional delegation, launched an inquiry into Sable Offshore’s efforts to restart oil drilling off the California coast and demanded answers on the company’s collaboration with the Trump Administration to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) in relation to this project.
In their letter to Sable Offshore Corp.’s CEO and Chairman Jim C. Flores, the lawmakers raise concerns about the timeline of Sable’s accrued lawsuits, cease and desist orders, fines, etc. dating back from April 2025 to March 2026. The lawmakers demanded Sable preserve all of their internal communication records between the company and administration officials related to the restart.
“The Administration’s reliance on the Defense Production Act (DPA)—no doubt in consultation and coordination with lawyers representing Sable —is a serious misuse of a federal law meant to be involved for national security reasons, not to enrich an industry already making record profits. To help Congress better understand this effort to circumvent California law and coastal protections, we seek detailed information on the company’s role in this decision, and your communications with the Trump administration in relation to Sable Offshore’s SYU project,” wrote the lawmakers.
The lawmakers also pointed to concerning financial ties between Sable and President Trump, including executives at Sable directly contributing to Trump’s campaigns. They emphasized that Sable has closely worked with the Administration to restart the oil pipelines that have been dormant for over a decade all in an effort to “benefit industry partners and preferred energy sources” rather than protect our coastlines.
“Californians do not want oil production restarting along their coasts and have voted repeatedly for California laws that block coastal oil production. The environmental impacts, along with the economic fallout from those impacts, are simply too great, especially when there is little to no benefit for California consumers. We urge you to pause and consider the long-term legal and financial ramifications of collaborating with the Trump administration to circumvent California law,” concluded the lawmakers.
In addition to Padilla, Schiff, and Carbajal, the letter was signed by U.S. Representatives Julia Brownley (D-Calif.-26), John Garamendi (D-Calif.-08), Jared Huffman (D-Calif.-02), Mike Levin (D-Calif.-49), Dave Min (D-Calif.-47), Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.-19), Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.-11), and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.-04).
California’s push to limit new offshore drilling dates back to 1969, when an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, blanketing beaches with a thick layer of oil and killing thousands of marine mammals and birds. That disaster remained the nation’s worst oil spill until the Exxon Valdez incident two decades later. More recently, incidents like the 2015 Refugio State Beach and the 2021 Huntington Beach oil spills have underscored how risky additional offshore drilling can be for coastal communities.
Padilla has been leading the charge against offshore oil and gas leases. In February, Padilla and Schiff led a letter denouncing the Administration’s plan to develop new offshore oil and gas leases in the Southern and Central California Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) planning areas. Last December, Padilla and Representative Huffman led 26 members of the California Democratic Congressional delegation in condemning the Administration’s official draft 2027-2032 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program that includes six lease proposals off the coast of Northern, Central, and Southern California. Immediately after the Administration’s sell-off to Big Oil was announced, Padilla and Huffman issued a joint statement and hosted a press call slamming the move. The month before, Padilla and Huffman led over 100 lawmakers in demanding Trump and Secretary Burgum immediately cease any plans to open new offshore oil and gas leaks in U.S. federal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in the Arctic Ocean and northern Bering Sea off of Alaska, and in the Eastern Gulf.
On Earth Day, Padilla and Huffman, along with Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Representative Frank Pallone (D-N.J.-06), announced a pair of bills to permanently protect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans from the dangers of fossil fuel drilling. Padilla and Huffman’s West Coast Ocean Protection Act would permanently prohibit new oil and gas leases for offshore drilling off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. In 2021, Senator Padilla joined West Coast Senators in calling on Senate leadership to include the West Coast Ocean Protection Act in the Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill after an estimated 126,000 gallons of oil spilled off the coast of California.
Full text of the letter is available here and below.
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