Emergency Podcast: The Trump Regime's Shock Move to Ram Offshore Oil through SB - and State's 11th-Hour Bid to Stop It
In a special Newsmakers TV episode, Independent columnist Nick Welsh reprises his exclusive reporting about the fast-moving Sable Oil story, as California faces off with Trump amid war with Iran.
On Friday the 13th, Trump Administration officials suddenly and shockingly decreed that the national security of the United States requires the immediate restart of offshore oil pumping through Santa Barbara County.
An order from the regime’s Secretary of Energy specifically demanded that the rogue Texas oil company known as Sable Offshore straightaway resume operations of the Santa Ynez Unit - which includes three offshore platforms, an onshore industrial facility, and an antiquated pipeline that ruptured in 2015. That pipeline failure not only spewed 142,000 gallons of oil onto Refugio Beach and nearby waters, but also shut down offshore oil drilling and transport in Santa Barbara for the past decade, amid a tangle of litigation, administrative actions and criminal charges.
Nick Welsh, executive editor of the Santa Barbara Independent, who since the spill has covered every twist and turn in the hugely consequential and enormously complex saga, checked in with Newsmakers TV on Sunday to reprise his reporting on the latest stunning developments — including an 11th hour attempt by California state government officials to block Trump’s order.
As he wrote this weekend, the fast-moving story is unfurling “in the context of the naked power struggle now pitting President Trump against California Governor Gavin Newsom against the backdrop of a spiraling global energy crisis precipitated by the attack on Iran launched two weeks ago by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
On this special, breaking news episode, the dean of Santa Barbara local journalism breaks down the multiple, overlapping layers of policy, politics, environmental hazard, constitutional law, and gas pump economics at stake in the matter.
Check out our conversation with Nick Welsh via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. Our podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, or on Soundcloud here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 5 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on weekends.
Image: Oil rigs offshore Santa Barbara County (Santa Barbara Independent).



Just saying.. better we harvest our own oil here in CA. Bringing it in from foreign nations makes no sense at all, and that’s what CA is doing.