Watch: The Sable Oil Scandal Decoded - Class Action Suits Create New Barrier to Pipeline Re-Start; Immigration Politics
Amid the Trump Administration's fake news triumphalism about offshore oil in Santa Barbara, new court filings raise questions about lawfulness of pipeline owners' claims to investors
In prototypical blowhard tones standard for Donald Trump and his toadies, the U.S. Department of Interior recently erroneously announced the re-start of offshore oil production in Santa Barbara County.
“As the Trump-Vance Administration focused on securing Energy Dominance (seriously? - ed.) and Unleashing American Energy through critical domestic oil production, Sable (offshore oil company) announced the restart of production…a move that could generate up to 10,000 barrels of oil per day per platform,” Interior said.
“This is a significant achievement for the Interior Department and aligns with the Administration’s Energy Dominance (again?) initiative, as it successfully resumed production in just five months,” they added.
Except…no.
As Nick Welsh explains on this week’s edition of Newsmakers TV, claims that offshore production has resumed, made by Sable Offshore, the shady Texas outfit desperately trying to restart oil flowing through the pipeline that disastrously failed in the 2015 Refugio spill, and then duly re-blazoned by the Administration, are whoppers at best and, at worst, deliberately false statements made to mislead investors.
The latter is the central claim in two class action lawsuits prepared to be filed against Sable, which, in Actual Fact, is ensnared in a gnarly tangle of legal, political and policy snags still blocking their full-speed-ahead, truth-be-damned effort to force feed offshore oil through the disputed pipeline, after a decade free from pumping across Santa Barbara County.
Nick decodes the complicated strands of this complex story, sorting through the multiple lawsuits and local, state and federal administrative matters now faced by Sable, amid strong community pushback and some impressive lawyering by the Environmental Defense Center and its heroic chief counsel, Linda Krop.
He and the genial host also discuss the pall cast over this year’s Fiesta by Trump’s immigration secret police, the political pressure on Sheriff Bill Brown to push back against the Administration, and the tone deaf response by leaders of Old Spanish Days, the sponsor of Fiesta, in failing to acknowledge, let alone take action about, the widespread fear in Latino communities of going out to a public celebration. Viva, sure, but first read the room, guys.
Plus: Nick defends Salud against Jerry’s attacks on the congressman’s infernal milquetoast, milksop rhetoric in response to Trump outrages.
All this and more, right here, right now, on Newsmakers TV
Check out Episode 510 via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The SB Newsmakers podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, and other platforms, 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. Monday.
Image: A 1970 Los Angeles Times photo shows leaders of the then-new Get Oil Out organization dropping a buoy in the Channel where oil leaked, triggering the historic Santa Barbara oil spill a year earlier.