{"id":4865,"date":"2026-03-14T03:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T03:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4865\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T03:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T03:51:08","slug":"trump-administration-orders-restart-of-california-coastal-oil-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4865\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration orders restart of California coastal oil drilling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump is asserting executive authority to demand the controversial resumption of offshore oil drilling along California\u2019s coastline as gas prices soar<\/a> amid the ongoing war with Iran.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> giving the Department of Energy the ability to use a Cold War-era law known as the Defense Production Act to accelerate oil and gas development. Energy Secretary Chris Wright quickly responded with an order directing Sable Offshore Corp. to restore operations<\/a> of the Santa Ynez Unit and Santa Ynez Pipeline System along the Santa Barbara County coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s order will strengthen America\u2019s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness,\u201d Wright said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the action as \u201can attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting.\u201d He pledged legal action against the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald Trump started a war, admitted it would spike gas prices nationwide, and told Americans it was a small price to pay,\u201d Newsom said. \u201cNow he\u2019s using this crisis of his own making to attempt what he\u2019s wanted to do for years: open California\u2019s coast for his oil industry friends so they can poison our beaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s announcements seek to make good on previous threats<\/a> from the Trump administration to force the resumption of offshore oil drilling in California. They also follow years of effort from Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. to revive dormant oil infrastructure<\/a> along the Santa Barbara County coast.<\/p>\n

Environmental organizations, local residents and state political leaders have strongly opposed such resumption, citing potential dangers to ocean health. Sable has faced particular backlash<\/a> over its efforts to restart a pipeline that ruptured in 2015, causing one of the biggest oil spills in state history<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Talia Nimmer, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, decried Trump\u2019s executive action as a \u201crevolting power grab by an extremist president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is misusing this Cold War-era law just to help a Texas oil company skirt vital state laws that protect our coastline, and Californians will pay the price,\u201d Nimmer said in a statement. \u201cMandating a restart of these defective oil pipelines won\u2019t curb high gas prices, but it will put coastal wildlife at huge risk of another oil spill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sable\u2019s Santa Barbara County facilities could produce around 50,000 barrels of oil a day, replacing nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month, according to the Department of Energy. Still, this represents a drop in the bucket compared with the estimated 20 million barrels a day currently held up by Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in response to ongoing American and Israeli attacks. <\/p>\n

Two weeks into the Iran war, crude oil has reached $100 a barrel, and the average price of gas in California has topped $5.40 a gallon, according to<\/a> the American Automobile Assn. <\/p>\n

Times staff writer Grace Toohey contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump is asserting executive authority to demand the controversial resumption of offshore oil drilling along California\u2019s coastline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3860,3869,3859,3868,271,3863,1949,3864,8,96,9,3861,3866,3867,3862,7,1071,3865],"class_list":{"0":"post-4865","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-barrel","9":"tag-big-oil-spill","10":"tag-california-coast","11":"tag-coastline","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-executive-order","14":"tag-friday","15":"tag-gas-price","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-iran-war","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-oil-drilling","20":"tag-sable","21":"tag-sable-offshore-corp","22":"tag-santa-barbara-county-coast","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-trump","25":"tag-trump-administration-order-restart"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116225499650715343","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}