Oil platforms off the coast of Santa Barbara County, California
LOS ANGELES — Should a federal covering be removed, a state appeals court has signaled oil drilling and pipeline company Sable Offshore could yet be ordered to cease operations at its Santa Barbara pipeline, as a divided appeals panel says the will of California's controversial Coastal Commission should reign supreme over local governments when deciding if and how oil pipelines can be built and maintained.
On June 17, a three-justice panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal sided with the California Coastal Commission in its dispute with Sable over which government entity gets to decide if Sable's work to maintain and repair its oil pipelines has been properly permitted and may proceed.
In the 2-1 ruling, the majority said a permit granted in 1986 to the former owners of the Las Flores oil pipelines, giving them ongoing permission to maintain and repair the pipelines and ensure they remain in good working order doesn't hold up against a challenge brought by the state-created Coastal Commission.
The majority said allowing the county's permit to carry the day would amount to reducing the authority of the Coastal Commission, which the majority said was never the intent of state lawmakers who created the CCC.
Amendments to the law that created the CCC "expanded the Commission’s authority by allowing the Commission to issue a cease and desist order even when the Commission and local agency are at odds," the majority wrote.
"The Legislature could not have intended for the Commission’s newfound authority to be thwarted by communication from an objecting county," they said.
The majority opinion was authored by Justice Tari L. Cody. Justice Hernando J. Baltodano concurred.
Justice Kenneth R. Yegan dissented, saying the decision would effectively negate the permit and grant sole authority to the Commission to override the county's permitting authority and result in dangerous conditions.
"There was no, and is no, time limitation to the requirement to the 'maintenance and repair' provision," Yegan wrote. "This permitted and still permits the repair of the pipeline decades later. Indeed, a 'maintenance and repair' requirement for the original construction certainly contemplates that such requirement would last as long as the pipeline was to be used.
"Any other reading of the local permit would allow the pipeline to deteriorate without any remedy for the County. This would have been folly."
The decision, however, is just one piece in a complex, ongoing legal fight, as anti-oil California Democrats seek to force Sable to once again shut down the flow of oil produced offshore through its pipeline.
The pipeline had been shut down since 2015, following an oil spill.
In the meantime, Sable purchased the pipeline and sought to restart it. They began that work after confirming with Santa Barbara County officials that the maintenance and repair work they intended to perform to make the pipeline operational was covered under the 1986 permit.
Santa Barbara County officials notably agreed to that proposition, and returned the plans to Sable without taking any further action or review, or a vote of any kind.
However, the California Coastal Commission asserted Sable must still obtain permits from the Commission for the work.
Sable objected, and the company and Commission asked the courts to decide.
Oil, however, has again begun to flow through the pipeline, after the U.S. Department of Energy, under President Donald Trump, moved to override California state control, by ordering the pipeline to resume operations under a national security directive.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is challenging that order in court, asserting the order is illegal and the pipeline must be cleared by the state to resume operations. Newsom has deployed a number of California state agencies against the project, asserting it is unsafe without much more extensive work.
A federal judge is weighing those considerations, among others.
But, should the federal government's order end, either by judicial injunction or a change in presidential mood or administrations, Sable will need to deal with the Coastal Commission, and not Santa Barbara County, the California Second District court's majority ruled.
The authority of the CCC has come under significant legal scrutiny in recent years, as property owners and local governments have pushed back against the attempt by the Commission to essentially override all local control on development along California's coast.
In April, the California Supreme Court surprised many by, for the first time, imposing significant limits on the Commission's expanding authority. In that ruling, in a case involving the planned construction of some homes in Los Osos, the state high court declared the Commission lacked the authority to simply "appeal to itself" and reject permits local officials had already awarded.
In its new ruling, the Second District majority noted that Los Osos ruling. But they said they didn't believe it applied in this instance, because, in part, the Commission didn't "appeal to itself" in this case. Rather, they said, the Commission issued a cease-and-desist order, that was later reviewed and backed by a court order.
It is not yet known if Sable will also appeal the Second District decision and ask the state Supreme Court to decide if its Los Osos decision should apply to its dispute over the Santa Barbara County permit.
Yegan, however, said this case also represents an abuse of power by the Commission.
"... The Commission does not have unlimited power to enter a 'cease and desist' order merely because it disagrees with the County," Yegan wrote. "... The Commission certified the local government’s pipeline’s decision in 1986. This delegation to the County cannot be rescinded decades later by the Commission."
Sable is represented in the action vs the Coastal Commission by attorneys Jeffrey D. Dintzer and Garrett B. Stanton, of the firm of Alston & Bird.
