Trump invokes Defense Production Act to restart California pipeline blocked by courts

The Santa Ynez Unit has sat idle for over a decade. In May 2015, a corroded pipeline owned by Plains All American Pipeline ruptured near Refugio State Beach, pouring an estimated 450,000 gallons of crude oil across 150 miles of 🌴California coastline. The spill killed hundreds of birds and marine mammals, closed beaches and fisheries, and triggered a grand jury indictment. Plains All American ultimately paid $230 million in civil settlements. ExxonMobil, which owned the offshore platforms and related infrastructure, mothballed the Santa Ynez Unit in the wake of the spill and the California regulatory response.

In 2024, Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. purchased the Santa Ynez Unit from ExxonMobil. The unit includes three offshore oil platforms in federal waters, onshore pipelines running to the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility, and a pipeline network capable of producing about 50,000 barrels of oil per day. Sable told investors that restarting operations could replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude monthly. The company began pushing aggressively to restart the system but ran into 🌴California state regulators, county permit requirements, and court orders requiring compliance before any restart.

By March 2026, Sable faced compounding legal obstacles. Santa Barbara County District Attorney JSJohn Savrnoch filed 21 criminal charges against the company in September 2025, including five felony counts of knowingly discharging a pollutant into a waterway and 16 misdemeanors related to unlawful obstruction of a streambed during Sable's repair work. A state court found Sable guilty of 'systemic non-compliance' in December 2025.

In February 2026, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge DDDonna D. Geck ruled against Sable's bid to restart — finding that the Trump administration's earlier federal approvals were not enough to undo her injunction. 🌴California had also filed a separate lawsuit in January 2026 challenging federal approval of Sable's restart plans. With court orders blocking it at the state level, Sable turned to the Trump administration for a different avenue.

Trump's March 13 executive order invoked the Defense Production Act — a 1950 law originally designed to mobilize American industry for Cold War national defense — to authorize Energy Secretary Chris Wright to direct Sable to restore operations immediately. The DPA gives the president sweeping authority to require businesses to prioritize contracts, allocate materials, and take steps necessary for national defense. It had been used previously to accelerate vaccine production during COVID-19 and to address semiconductor shortages, but never to compel an oil company to restart idled infrastructure or to override pending state court proceedings.

Wright issued a formal directive to Sable the same day, saying the action would 'strengthen America's oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense.' The order cited oil's near-$100-per-barrel price as a national security emergency tied directly to the Iran war.

Governor Gavin Newsom called the federal order 'wildly disingenuous' and 'illegal.' He argued the real reason oil prices were spiking was Trump's own decision to launch the Iran war, and said using that self-created crisis to justify bypassing 🌴California courts was a bad-faith maneuver. 'This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,' Newsom said.

🌴California's legal argument rested on two pillars: that state criminal proceedings against Sable were not preempted by federal emergency authority, and that the DPA's provisions did not extend to overriding judicial injunctions issued by state courts. Legal scholars noted that no court had ever ruled on whether DPA authority could supersede state criminal charges against a company the federal government was directing to operate. The state promised to return to court immediately.

The three offshore platforms in the Santa Ynez Unit sit in federal waters — meaning Sable's offshore operations fall under federal rather than state jurisdiction for permitting purposes. The onshore pipeline segment, however, runs through 🌴California territory and falls squarely under state oversight. The split jurisdiction was central to the legal fight: even if the DPA gave the federal government authority over the offshore components, California argued it retained authority over the onshore pipeline that the 2015 spill came from.

Environmental groups including the Center for Biological Diversity called the order a direct threat to 🌴California's coast and argued that restarting a pipeline under criminal charges for environmental violations — using a national defense emergency as justification — inverted the purpose of environmental law. The Refugio spill had been a defining moment in California coastal politics, reinforcing the state's post-1969 resistance to offshore drilling.