A California judge on Friday ruled that the Trump administration’s order that a Texas company ship its offshore oil to market does not release it from the limits she previously placed on the operation.
What happened: Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Donna Geck ruled that Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s March order to Sable Offshore Corp. does not require her to drop the preliminary injunction she put on Sable’s pipeline restart.
Why it matters: Geck’s ruling is a victory for environmental groups and the state of California, which has launched multiple legal challenges against Sable to stop the company from running oil through its pipelines. The Trump administration, for its part, has intervened twice to help Sable overcome opposition from state officials.
Context: The previous company that owned Sable’s pipeline system, which connects its oil platforms off the Santa Barbara coast to a waystation in Kern County, signed a federal consent decree in the wake of a 2015 oil spill. That spill shuttered the operation, and the decree required the pipeline operator to obtain a waiver from the California Fire Marshal before restarting the pipeline.
