The thin ice that Sable Offshore Corporation skates by on just keeps getting thinner.
Ramming this overly aggressive push to get oil flowing through its pipelines down California’s throat isn’t really helping the Texas-based company’s case. And a reliable Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors oil vote switched sides because of Sable’s seemingly never-ending chain of bad faith actions.
I’m shocked. But not appalled!
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino has supported oil companies in this county for as long as I’ve been fluttering around, but he’s not impressed with Sable—which has attempted to “go around” the state’s environmental regulations since it took over the Santa Ynez Unit and its associated pipelines from ExxonMobil early last year.
The California Coastal Commission levied an $18 million fine against Sable for doing work without approval, the county District Attorney’s Office filed criminal charges against the company for allegedly knowingly polluting local waterways, and the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board sued the company for not getting discharge permits for its work.
And Lavagnino, who’s previously supported Sable’s attempts to work with the county, was sick of those shenanigans!
“I have, my entire career, supported the oil industry. And I still do,” Lavagnino told the Sun. “I support all the jobs that they create and the revenue they generate, but at the end of the day, they still have to follow the rules that these guys [at Sable] just blatantly disregard.”
I’m not sure that him joining the vote against Sable’s permit transfer request will do anything to waylay the company’s quest to get oil pumping regardless of state and local regulations, but it helped make the board’s decision on Nov. 4 stronger than a simple majority.
The board voted 4-1 to have staff work up findings to deny the company from receiving permits that ExxonMobil used to operate the Santa Ynez Unit and its affiliated pipelines.
“I have many friends in the oil industry, and I will continue to support efforts to access our natural resources, but it has to be done responsibly by operators who put safety above profits,” Lavagnino said. “The evidence in this case is overwhelming. There is something wrong with the strategy of Sable’s leadership. Trying to simply bulldoze through the permitting process has not been helpful and is not the way we expect businesses in Santa Barbara County to conduct themselves.”
It probably helps that this is Lavagnino’s last term as supervisor. I’m not so sure that the righty-tighty side of politics sees Sable’s moves as offensive, which is unfortunate.
Meanwhile, the liberal 3-2 majority is hell-bent on making things as difficult for one of the county’s legacy industries as possible with its recent vote to have staff draw up an ordinance that would phase out oil operations.
Despite Lavagnino’s change of heart on Sable, he’s not down with that and described the likelihood as “more rhetoric than reality.”
“When we get a report back that tells us how many millions of dollars it’s going to cost to do that, nobody’s going to be interested in that,” he said.
But we live in a world where rhetoric becomes reality, somehow. I wouldn’t hold my breath that the majority will care about the cost to taxpayers or the economy.
The Canary is grounded in reality. Send thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 13 – Nov 20, 2025.
Too bad that homework by the Board of Supervisors was not done. Please see the attached letter from the County that says something entirely different.