Court of Appeal upholds ruling against oil pipeline repairs – even though repairs have been completed

(CN) – A California appeals court on Wednesday upheld a trial court’s order granting a preliminary injunction against an oil drilling company that would, in theory, prevent the company from repairing its oil pipeline. But repairs to the pipeline have already been completed and oil has been flowing for months, thanks to an intervention by the Trump administration.

However, Wednesday’s decision means that Sable Offshore Corp. is still on the hook for civil penalties.

The 122-mile Las Flores pipeline system connects three oil rigs, known as the Santa Ynez unit, off the coast of Santa Barbara, to a terminal in Kern County. In 2015, the pipeline, then owned by Plains All American, ruptured, sending more than 100,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, killing hundreds of birds and marine mammals and blackening miles of coastline. After a jury trial, Plains All American was convicted of one felony and eight misdemeanors and ordered to pay a criminal fine of $3.3 million. The company also agreed to pay $230 million to settle a class action lawsuit.

The litigation to resume offshore drilling has been much more Byzantine. Plains sold its pipeline to ExxonMobil in 2022, which then came back and sold it to Sable in 2024. The company then began repairing the pipeline, with the goal of resuming operations. But the California Coastal Commission, an agency that controls all development along the state’s 1,100 miles of coastline, balked, saying some of the repairs were unauthorized and required commission approval.

The commission asked Santa Barbara County to take some sort of enforcement action, but the county was noncommittal, telling Sable in a letter that “the pipeline anomaly repair work is authorized by existing permits” that were issued in 1990, when the pipeline was first built. Meanwhile, the Coastal Commission sent Sable a cease-and-desist letter, while the county told the coastal commission in a letter that the county “has not permitted activity without a permit, nor has the County taken any action on a permit or development application that can be appealed to the Coastal Commission.”

And so Sable sued the Coastal Commission, and the Coastal Commission sued Sable. In May 2025, Superior Court Judge Thomas Anderle agreed to issue a preliminary injunction, barring Sable from repairing and therefore restarting the pipeline. Sable appealed.

Then, in March, after global oil shipments were disrupted by US and Israeli attacks on Iran, Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered Sable to fix and restart the pipeline. A new round of federal lawsuits followed, but the crude began to flow. A lawsuit by a nonprofit party was dismissed, after a judge rule they lacked standing. Another federal judge refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would stop oil drilling.

But the preliminary injunction issued by the state court judge remained active, although it was ignored. So did the complaint against him. On Wednesday, a three-judge panel ruled, 2-1, that the order was the right call.

Sable had argued that the Coastal Commission had no authority to stop pipeline repairs because Santa Barbara County had intervened. Two of the three appeals judges disagreed, finding that the circuit had failed to act at all.

“We reject Sable’s statutory interpretation because it implausibly characterizes a circuit that refuses to act.” has written Justice Tari Cody. “Such conduct—the ‘act’ of refusing to act—cannot prevent the Commission itself from issuing a cease and desist order.”

The decision, also signed by Judge Hernaldo Baltodano, drew a rather angry dissent from Judge Kenneth Yegan.

“First, a dose of reality,” Yegan wrote. “The repair job is done. It’s a ‘fate done.'” And, pursuant to federal intervention, oil is now flowing through the pipeline without incident. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution takes precedence. The federal government has violated the state Commission’s ‘cease and desist’ order, and it exceeds the preliminary injunction order.

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