A new lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges the Trump administration’s handling of offshore oil development at the Santa Ynez Unit– the site of the 2015 Refugio oil spill.
The Santa Ynez platforms shut down after the spill, but now, Sable Offshore Corp., the pipeline’s new owner, wants to restart production under oil plans dating back to the 1970s and 80s.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation are suing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for allegedly neglecting its legal duty to update those decades-old plans. The lawsuit said the Bureau hasn’t required Sable to revise the plans.
Kristen Monsell, the legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the goal of suing is to get the federal government to comply with the law.
“It's really quite horrifying how the federal government seems poised to allow this offshore drilling operation to resume without carefully evaluating all of the risk or ensuring all legal requirements are satisfied,” Monsell said.
Monsell said updating and addressing the potential harms of restarting the pipeline is key to preventing another spill.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management declined to comment on the lawsuit, which it has 60 days to respond to.
