Trump Gives Sable Go-Ahead to Restart Oil Production in Santa Barbara Channel

[Updated: Fri., Mar. 13, 2026, 5:17pm]

President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Friday morning that would authorize the Secretary of the Department of Energy to greenlight Sable Offshore oil company’s ongoing efforts to restart production at the much-fought-over Santa Ynez Unit off the coast of Gaviota. Energy Secretary Christ Wright quickly followed up by doing exactly that.

“Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that the West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness,” Wright stated.

Congressmember Salud Carbajal shot back with a prepared statement of his own, denouncing the action. “President Trump is using the war in Iran as a pretext to override the will of Santa Barbara County residents and the State of California. The reality is that restarting the Sable project would produce nowhere near enough oil to lower the skyrocketing gas prices families are facing. His reckless war is causing immense damage, and jamming the Sable project through is a hollow solution.”

Friday’s presidential executive order and action of the Energy Secretary come shortly on the heels of the lengthy Department of Justice legal opinion concluding that the restart of Sable Offshore’s plant falls within the scope and jurisdiction of the Defense Production Act. The restart action flies in the face of opinions rendered by the California Attorney General and the Office of the State Fire Marshal. Last October, the Fire Marshal issued a ruling decreeing that Sable had not yet done enough repair work on a pipeline that spilled 142,000 gallons of crude in a leak in 2015. That spill was due to systemic corrosion to the pipeline.

The Defense Production Act, passed in 1950, gives the president sweeping powers to allocate and redirect energy, labor, materials and other economic resources in response to shortages — real or anticipated — that are of import to national security.

Today’s action comes as global oil markets are in turmoil and gas prices have been increasing, triggered by Trump’s decision to join with Israel in waging undeclared war against Iran.

Sable has stated that it can produce 45,000-60,000 barrels of oil a day if the Santa Ynez Unit, which it purchased from Exxon two years ago, were to restart. 

Even before the war started, the company argued that this renewed production was in the national security interest of the United States for a host of reasons. Among them was that the military bases along the coast of California have been at increasing risk of insufficient gas supplies because California refineries lack adequate oil supplies to keep state producers humming. 

Environmental organizations fighting Sable’s restart efforts have dismissed these arguments as fear-mongering and exaggeration.

“This oil isn’t going to bring the price of oil down, not by one cent,” stated attorney Jeremey Frankel with the Environmental Defense Center. “Trump is using a war that he started to increase profits for his friends in the oil business.”

Frankel questioned whether the Defense Production Act can be used to restart Sable as the Department of Justice asserted last week, but is still working on the legal arguments he and others opposed to the project might best deploy to oppose the use of the Defense Production Act to restart. 

Given the relentless and intense legal warfare between Sable on one side and the California Attorney General coupled with the environmental opposition on the other, there are no doubt a multitude of other shoes yet to drop on the ongoing saga over Sable oil. Perhaps key is the fight between the Attorney General on behalf of the State Fire Marshal, which last October issued a ruling finding that Sable had not yet completed all the repairs necessary to restart the pipeline. 

The prior December, the Fire Marshal had issued Sable what was then a much-sought waiver, finding that the pipeline could be safe to operate, assuming much more frequent and aggressive corrosion monitoring and repairs were to take place. Sable has charged that the Fire Marshal moved the goal posts on the company last October by insisting on what the company claimed were new and previously undiscussed repairs. 

In December, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration asserted that jurisdictional control over the restart rested with it not the state Fire Marshal. The Attorney General is fighting that action, describing it as a federal power grab and usurpation of state sovereignty. 

With Sable Offshore is involved, one thing’s for certain; there’s always more to come.