The Brief

A Santa Barbara judge intends to rule against Sable Offshore Corp.’s bid to restart a pipeline that spilled thousands of barrels of crude into the Pacific 11 years ago – dealing a significant blow to the company’s attempt to use the Trump Administration to get around California regulators in its path.

In a tentative ruling, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Donna D. Geck said the Trump administration’s intervention was not enough to undo her earlier order keeping the pipeline shut down. The ruling — a preliminary decision signalling how the judge intends to rule unless persuaded otherwise — comes ahead of a Friday hearing.

The Houston-based startup, which bought the system from ExxonMobil in early 2024, secured an extraordinary intervention from the Trump administration last year to wrest oversight of the pipeline away from the California regulators who were blocking its path.

Sable declined to comment on the tentative ruling. In an earlier statement, Steve Rusch, the company’s vice president of environmental and government affairs, said the project would “offer Californians immediate relief at the pump by making gas more affordable,” and that the company had the experience to operate safely.

The company is facing a criminal prosecution by the local district attorney, a federal securities inquiry, two court injunctions and findings by county officials of a pattern of noncompliance.

Trump steps in to federalize a pipeline 

When state regulators told Sable that the company needed to repair corrosion on the pipeline last fall, the company turned to Washington.

About a month later, Sable asked federal regulators to declare the pipeline “interstate” – a designation that would shift authority from California's Office of the State Fire Marshal to the federal government. The company cited President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025 declaration of a national energy emergency.

On Dec. 17, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration agreed, ruling that the Las Flores Pipeline — two onshore oil lines running from Santa Barbara County to Kern County — qualifies as an interstate pipeline because it begins on federal offshore platforms and ends at a refinery in Kern County. The agency noted that the pipeline had been federally overseen before 2016. Six days later, the agency issued an emergency permit approving a restart plan. The agency declined to comment.

The maneuver caused immediate conflict. A 2020 federal consent decree stemming from the 2015 spill requires approval from the California State Fire Marshal before the pipeline can restart — a condition that appears to conflict directly with the Trump administration’s move to strip the fire marshal of authority.

Workers prepare an oil containment boom at Refugio State Beach, north of Goleta, on May 21, 2015, two days after an oil pipeline ruptured, polluting beaches and killing hundreds of birds and marine mammals.

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Jae C. Hong

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AP Photo

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Environmental groups sued the Trump administration in December, saying it was “running roughshod over transparency, environmental review, and pipeline safety requirements.” California filed its own lawsuit in January. Christine Lee, a spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bonta said the Trump administration’s “illegal actions” contradict the consent decree and attempt to evade state oversight.

Both cases were consolidated earlier this month and are awaiting a ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Justice Department declined to comment.

“It's a real impingement on state authority here that shouldn't stand,” said Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, before the judge’s initial ruling was issued Thursday. “They're trying to basically seize control over these pipelines.”

The first major local test

Geck’s injunction, issued last July, bars Sable from restarting the pipeline until it secures all required state approvals, including those from the fire marshal. The order stems from a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Environmental Defense Center, which argued that the fire marshal violated the state Pipeline Safety Act by issuing restart waivers without required environmental review.

On Jan. 5, Sable asked Judge Geck to lift her injunction, arguing that once federal regulators asserted control, the state fire marshal “no longer has any regulatory authority.”

In her tentative ruling, Geck disagreed.

Linda Krop, a staff attorney with the Environmental Defense Center, said the tentative ruling turns on the 2020 consent decree, which binds Sable, federal regulators and the state fire marshal alike.

“It is still binding,” she said.

An exhibitor talks to an attendee at a town hall organized by the Environmental Defense Center and other local organizations.

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Zin Chiang

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CalMatters

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Attendees at the town hall in Santa Barbara on Jan. 17, 2026.

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Zin Chiang

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CalMatters

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At the core of the dispute is corrosion — and how strict the safety bar should be before oil can flow again. State regulators required permanent repairs on any section of pipe showing serious wall thinning, including spots that could be considered unsafe once inspection error is factored in.

In her tentative ruling, Geck sided with the state, finding that the federal action was not enough to override her order.

Sable will have a chance to contest that finding at Friday’s hearing. The company has argued that it had already completed the required repairs and argued that those tougher standards were meant to apply only after the pipeline restarts, not before.

The fight carries significant economic and environmental stakes.

Sable has told investors that production could rise from about 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to more than 50,000, with oil flowing to Los Angeles, Bakersfield and San Francisco refineries. The company told CalMatters this week it could serve 20% of the state’s market, an attractive possibility as California recalibrates its energy strategy to shore up fossil fuel infrastructure even as it pushes toward cleaner power.

But state water officials and the Coastal Commission say the pipeline crosses environmentally sensitive coastal areas, and environmental groups say corrosion risks that caused the 2015 Refugio spill make careful inspection essential.

Sable says it has upgraded monitoring systems and strengthened emergency shutoff protections on the line, plans to inspect the pipeline more frequently than federal rules require, and has response crews positioned for rapid deployment, according to a company spokesperson.

A UC Santa Barbara analysis found the restart would not reduce foreign imports and would raise global greenhouse gas emissions because of the project’s higher carbon intensity.

The remaining roadblocks

Multiple state and federal hurdles still stand between the company and a restart.

A second injunction, issued by Judge Thomas Anderle, also in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, bars work deemed development under state coastal law without a permit from the California Coastal Commission.

That order stems from a separate case over unpermitted work along the Gaviota Coast — conduct state officials have called part of a broader pattern of noncompliance. The commission last year imposed a record $18 million fine, which Sable is disputing.

A new state law, Senate Bill 237, requires oil facilities idle for five years or more to obtain a new coastal development permit. A stretch of the pipeline crosses Gaviota State Park, and state officials say they cannot grant a new easement without completing environmental review.

Oil rigs are visible in the Santa Barbara Channel, as hikers visit the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve, on Jan. 17, 2026.

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Zin Chiang

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CalMatters

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The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors last year denied Sable’s request to assume ExxonMobil’s operating permits, also citing a pattern of noncompliance. County prosecutors have also charged Sable with multiple counts related to alleged unpermitted excavation and dumping during pipeline work in 2024 and early 2025. That criminal case is ongoing.

Sable’s shrinking runway

Even if Sable clears its legal hurdles, time may be its biggest obstacle.

The company disclosed in a recent securities filing that it had $97.7 million in cash and cash equivalents as of the end of last year and will need to spend $25 million to $30 million a month to keep operating this year. It said it plans to seek up to $250 million through stock sales.

The financial pressure is compounded by a weaker oil market than the company anticipated when pitching investors, said Clark Williams-Derry, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Crude prices have remained well below earlier projections, tightening the project’s economics and leaving less margin for delay.

“The company is … burning through cash,” Williams-Derry said. “It is facing much higher costs — and a much slower timetable — than it had envisioned originally.”

Sable has floated a fallback plan to bypass the onshore pipeline and export oil by offshore tanker — a proposal that has drawn fierce opposition in California.

The pipeline fight comes as the Trump administration acts to expand offshore oil leasing along the West Coast – a move that has drawn fierce opposition in California. Geck’s tentative ruling is the first sign that federal efforts to override state authority may face resistance in court.

“If Sable ultimately is not able to build this — or to reopen this pipeline — I think it'll just be confirmation that state and local governments have a say,” said Deborah Sivas, a Stanford environmental law professor. “It'll just reaffirm the Feds can't come in and force things down on states and locals.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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Courtesy Steve Campos

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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Laura Hertfeldz

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”