A pipeline that sat dead for 11 years just roared back to life — and nobody in Sacramento gave it permission.
Welcome to Santa Barbara.
Where Oprah has a beach house.
And 43,000 barrels of oil now flow every single day.
Here's the twist.
This pipeline is a convicted repeat offender.
It ruptured in 2015. Corrosion. Poor monitoring. Crude oil in the Pacific.
California shut it down and never looked back.
Until Trump did.
You skip the state entirely.
Sable Offshore — the Texas company that bought this pipeline from Exxon Mobil in 2024 — got rejected by California regulators.
So it went to Washington instead.
Trump invoked the Defense Production Act.
A 1950s Cold War law.
Built for wars and missile shortages.
Now being used… for a corroded oil pipeline.
The White House calls it national security.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright says California hosts 30 military bases — more than any state — and 60% of its oil is imported.
Gavin Newsom calls it something else entirely: illegal.
He's suing.
This isn't random NIMBY-ism.
Santa Barbara's 1969 spill practically invented the modern environmental movement.
Supervisor Joan Hartmann watched it happen.
"Seeing dying birds… it was a wave of shame," she said.
Today, residents swear they're spotting more tar on the sand.
Experts say there's no proof it's linked.
But trust, once spilled, doesn't come back easily.
Just weeks ago, Sable reportedly asked the federal government to seize private and state land through eminent domain — to force the pipeline through, permits or not.
Meanwhile Sable's stock has crashed to record lows.
And nearly $700 million owed to Exxon comes due soon.
So this isn't just a fight over oil anymore.
It's a company under financial pressure…
leaning on presidential emergency powers…
to push through a state's own courts.
Not bad for a pipeline nobody wanted running again.
That's all for now!
