•U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) asked Sable Offshore Corp. CEO and Chairman Jim Flores to cease all Santa Ynez Unit oil drilling operations in a July 28 letter. According to Schiff’s office, Sable refused to provide information about its communications with the Trump administration—specifically about the Defense Production Act (DPA)—to multiple California legislators who sent inquiries in late May. “Californians are owed a transparent accounting of your company’s repeated circumvention of state law,” Schiff wrote to Flores. Schiff acknowledged a June letter from law firm Gibson Dunn on Sable’s behalf, which he said describes the Santa Ynez Unit restart as “merely complying” with a government order directed at the company through the DPA. “However, the letter completely neglects the fact that, according to the federal government itself, Sable asked the administration to issue such an order. The Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion specifically references Sable’s request,” Schiff wrote. “The fact that Sable refuses to acknowledge this or provide a copy of its own request to the federal government for the American public to see is quite telling.” Schiff’s July 28 letter includes a list of 10 questions for Flores, including: “Did you communicate nonpublic information to a select group of investors concerning your strategy to convince [federal officials] to assist in your preemption of California law, and did this strategy involve offering a round of golf with Phil Mickelson?”
•U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) led his fellow co-chairs of the Congressional Cut Flower Caucus in introducing a bipartisan resolution to officially recognize the month of July 2026 as American Grown Flower and Foliage Month. “California produces nearly three quarters of all American-grown cut flowers, and I’ve seen firsthand the vital role these farms play in supporting local jobs, small businesses, and the long-term strength of our agricultural sector,” Carbajal said in a July 30 statement. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), co-chair of the caucus, described the American Grown Flower and Foliage Month resolution as building upon the Don Young American Grown Act—a bipartisan bill that requires any cut flowers or cut green plants officially on display in public areas of the Executive Office of the President, Department of Defense, or Department of State be grown in the U.S., District of Columbia, or U.S. territory.
• On July 30, U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-California) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York) introduced the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act. This legislation would create the nation’s first independent federal agency dedicated to rooting out corruption across the executive branch and “stopping presidents from turning public power into private profit,” according to Padilla’s office. If enacted, the new bureau would be led by a seven-member, Senate-confirmed board with fixed terms, strict independence protections, and partisan-balance requirements, while given investigative oversight and public-reporting powers. The Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act would also establishe a private right of action for the public and state attorneys general to sue for recoveries and forfeitures from certain federal officials, including the president and vice president. Padilla and Schumer announced the legislation during the Public Citizen Combatting Corruption forum. “With Trump, there’s clearly no effort to hide the corruption. That’s why I’m joining [Schumer] on this new bill, empowering everyday Americans … to be able to sue to take back every corrupt dollar that the president and the vice president or any future president or vice president makes through corruption while in office,” Padilla said at the forum. “When a president uses the office for personal profit, that is not ‘just the way it is,’ despite what Trump wants you to believe.”
This article appears in August 6 – August 13, 2026.
