Defense Production Act California Oil: Feds Restart Sable Offshore

While the federal government is moving to boost domestic oil production today, the Department of Energy ordered Sable Offshore Corporation to restart the Sanz offshore oil unit and pipeline off of California’s coast. We just announced yesterday bringing on a meaningful amount of oil production in the state of California from offshore that California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state. and uh we said enough is enough and we’ve got new oil production coming on in California. So, lots of actions we’re taking to mitigate this price rise. Officials say that site could produce about 50,000 barrels of oil a day.

Governor Gavin Newsome condemned the move, writing, quote, “Cal will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal communities, our environment, and our 51 billion coastal economy.” The statement continues, “The Trump administration and Sable are defying multiple court orders and we will see them back in court.” End quote. >> This is all going to be done under the Defense Production Act. Sable Offshore Corporation operates three oil rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Los Flores Canyon processing facility. The facility can produce enough to replace nearly 1 and a half million barrels of foreign crude each month.

The department says restoring Sable Offshore Corporation’s Santa Anz unit and pipeline off Santa Barbara is aimed at addressing supply disruption risks. Officials say the unit includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines and the Los Flores Canyon processing facility. The facility can produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day and would replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month. But there is push back. So, the Trump administration, the feds, invoked the Defense Production Act, directing a Houston-based Texas oil company to restart California operations after a decade.

Had a little spill decade ago. Been pretty inactive since then. We need the oil now. Crank it up, boys. Let’s go. Drill, baby, drill. Let’s read the story. Who can resist saying drill, baby, drill, right? Trump administration invoked the Defense Production Act. order an oil company to restart shuttered operations, saying the move is necessary to address oil disruption risks and reduce reliance on foreign crude. It’s It’s not going to produce a ton of oil. It’s just not. The numbers aren’t there compared to what California has lost with all of its refineries being closed. And basically, we’ve had in the last what 10 days, we’ve had the remaining three companies that basically run all of the refining in California.

You got PBF Energy, you’ve got Chevron, and you’ve got the other one was Marathon uh Petroleum. They all sent letters to the state of California and basically said unless there’s changes to the proposed amendments to the way that they, you know, operate their their oil trade, the refineries are going to close down. They cannot stay in business at the current rate of cost of doing business in California. Meanwhile, all these importers of oil aren’t restricted by all of this California nonsense. Just bring it in, guys. Just bring it in. And they’re not they’re not required to adhere to all of this layer after layer after layer of absolute nonsense because California, it it just wants to be all electric.

It wants to be clean, green energy. It wants to have no more gas cars after like 2045. zero dependency upon oil and oil products. But that’s just not reality. California is not living in reality. The reality is is that closing of all these refineries has created a situation in which gasoline prices have just absolutely skyrocketed to the moon. Now, we predicted this would happen because refin refineries have been closed. And then when that happens, you’re forced to bring in to import of a lot of your gas, oil, diesel, propane, jet fuel products. You’re forced to import that or at least import the crude and then refine it in California.

But you just don’t you don’t have many options for refineries. You’re down to like seven. You used to have 40 plus. You’re down to seven now. and and those ones that are left, they’re saying, “Hey, if you don’t make changes moving forward, we can’t be profitable. We will not be operating in your state. Period. Full stop.” So, Gavin Newsome’s been kind of he’s getting whacked from all ends. But he’s going to bl he’s going to blame Trump. He’s going to blame Trump’s war in Iran for the spike in gas. But the difference between California and Washington and Oregon is that those states already have just a bunch of taxes built in to their whole gas scene.

I mean, it’s it is it’s disgusting. It’s disgusting how much Washington state has in gas taxes. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Friday directed Sable Offshore Corp. an oil and gas company out of Houston to restore operations at the San And I was texting with um Mike Reza and he’s the oil controller, former oil controller, now runs the energy unit at Chico State. And I was texting with him and I’m like, “Ah, it’s interesting that the this is the Santz unit and it was the Santz reservoir that was empty. Santz is coming to haunt Gavin Newsome.” And it should because these are all things that could have been avoided with policy decisions.

And what did Gavin Newsome do? He went down this whole, oh, we’re only going to, you know, skateboard our way into work each day. We’re not going to we’re not going to use gasoline at all. and we’re we’re we’re all just, you know, we’re going to fly frisbes and instead of flying around, you know, just a bunch of nonsense. Things that aren’t reality. >> They’re just not reality at all. >> Like like being, you know, completely off of gasoline by 2045. What are you thinking? >> The midterms are eight months away. >> Border prioritizes restarting oil production pipeline capacity to move crude through the Los Flores pipeline system to Petland Station.

California once supplies nearly 40% of US oil production, but decades of radical state policies targeting reliable energy sources have driven a decline in domestic output. While fuel demand remains among the highest in the nation, the people, the tree huggers, the animal lovers, everybody who hates big oil, everybody who just loves the environment but still wants to drive their car >> left. The president’s organized. >> What they’re saying, one of their arguments is, well, demand is way down. Therefore, production should be way down. The closure of these oil refineries is normal. It’s a normal way of business attrition happening.

And that’s just simply not true. It’s it’s a straight up lie. It’s it’s not. If anything, if anything, consumption in California has held absolutely steady. Today, more than 60% of the oil refined in California comes from overseas with a significant share traveling through the straight of Hormuz presenting serious national security threats. So at one point in time straight of Hormuz it it carried about 20% and recently has carried about 20%age >> of the world’s oil. >> Now the fact that we’re we’re bombing Iran got that whole Iran war going on that takes states like the one that I’m sitting in and takes expensive gas products and really elevates them because we already start off at so much of a higher the cost basis.

So like this morning, my son Kieran sent me a picture of a gas station in Capitol Hill, Chop Chaz Country over in Seattle, and it was $5.99 a gallon. And yet average prices in Kansas and Oklahoma, Oklahoma’s 302 a gallon as of today, and Kansas, I think it was Kansas City, Kansas, was 303 a gallon. So you got 303 a gallon versus a high in Washington of about six bucks and a high in California of like eight bucks. Their stations charging eight bucks. And that only happens when you’ve already got so much in taxes already built in to the cost of every single gallon of gasoline. Here in Washington state, we were just lied to by Jay Eninsley.

It’s just going to be a couple of pennies on the dollar. Here we are consistently the third highest gas prices in the country instados, you know, just all the way around. California once supplied nearly 40%. And you, you know, um, one of the things, and I’ve talked about it so many times, is California getting gasoline from Houston to the Bahamas, through the Panama Canal, up the West Coast, best coast to California. I mean, just this enormous pattern, this circle, and the way they get it there is an an oil tanker that just basically belches stuff into the environment. It’s so backwards. It It’s It’s unnecessary and it’s backwards because if you would have prioritized, hey, we’ve got 1.8 billion barrels of oil sitting in the ground in California.

Got the fifth largest reserves. I might be off by one or two there. fifth largest reserves in the country, but they can’t use them because of this whole we’re just going to ride our skateboards to to work and we’re all going to have electric cars and you know, just a bunch of mumbo jumbo green energy deal nonsense. Just absolute gibberish nonsense. Windmills are going to be everywhere. If windmills worked, they’d be everywhere already, right? We’re going to have solar. Solar accounts for a tiny little fraction of the energy demands in the United States. I love it when I pull up to a house and I go, “God, that is ugly.” It’s just all these solar panels on the roof.

I view that I I’m an old school real estate guy. And you know what? If you want to put it on the back of your house or your shop or somewhere where nobody really sees it, do whatever you want. I mean, it’s going to take you years and years and years to advertise those expenses to the point where it makes sense. But go ahead, think of yourself as, you know, just this virtue signaling green energy, you know, just maven just just plowing the way for others, right? Well, when I pull up to a house and it’s just got all this crap on the roof, I just want to go up there and start ripping it off and tossing it onto the ground.

Yeah, you don’t need this. You don’t need that. Toss it onto the lawn. Just drive over it with my car. See you. Enjoy your solar. That might be a little bit of an overreaction, but that’s just kind of what I think, right? When I see that, I think that’s not necessary. And you’re you’re barely going to charge something up if you’re off- grid. Hey, okay, I get it. But the the amount of energy it takes to create all that solar panel and then all the mechanics and electronics, it’s it’s like the electric cars. the battery power it takes and the way we get the components for those batteries, you’re like, “Does this make any sense at all?” It’s kind of like vast majority of recycling just ends up in the dump.

Just right in the dump, toss in the dump. Nobody wants to hear that though, right? Because that means all that time we spend I spend more time in the dark trying to figure out which one of my yard it’s yard waste is dark green and my uh recycling is dark blue. You know, when it’s really dark out, you can’t really see and you’re stumbling around, grounds wet, trying to get your yard your garbage or your trying to get your recycling into the right bin, and you’re just like, does it even matter? Why don’t I just put it in the garbage? Cuz that’s where it’s going to end up anyway. I mean, honestly, that that makes sense to me, right?

Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense. Defense is one thing that to me, the whole California West Coast thing with all of the military installations throughout California, I think it’s like 40 or 42, something like that. If you don’t have enough jet fuel to get those planes in the air, I mean, it’s a it’s going to be a quick war, right? It’s going to be one of those. Um, you know, I think the the old saying was armies win with soldiers with full stomachs. It that’s a total butchering of the saying. It’s it’s a um it’s a it’s a logistics problem, right?

If you don’t have enough food to feed the soldiers, they’re they’re they’re going to be hungry and they’re not going to win those wars. Ground battle, right? We’re not going to win those wars. So, it’s it’s uh hey, let’s get all the stuff we need to fight these wars and we’ll have a chance. Well, with the way that the West Coast has gone with California basically having just bare minimum ability to bring in what they need to just fuel normal stuff, you have some kind of West Coast invasion or, you know, something along those lines. It it the whole thing just the whole house of cards just go. It’s done.

You’re over. It’s gone. Because you don’t have the ability domestically to produce what you need to because Gavin Newsome and his cadre of Democrats have just consistently over the last 20, 25, 30 years absolutely dumped on big oil and made it so difficult to operate that now they’re literally not operating. Philip 66 just shut down their refinery back in October. Valero just shut down their Benicia refinery in California in end of end of uh was that end of January? Yeah, it was end of January. It’s supposed to be April next month, but they went ahead and shut her down early because, you know, why not save a few nickels by not extending out this ridiculous process that doesn’t need to happen, but because California can’t see, you know, down the road even a few years.

How’s this going to work out, boys? Oh, it’s not. Okay, let’s just do it anyway. And that’s that that’s like the logic behind so much of what Democrats do. It it makes no sense. And yet they go ahead and do it and then then they’re shocked. Well, we we need to reimagine and rethink, which is always, hey, we effed this one up so bad. We got to redo it. But let’s go ahead and let’s have some concern and then you know what? We’ve got more work to do. Isn’t that what Democrats always say? We’ve got more work to do. when they just butchered it the first time. If they would have just left it alone, it would be even better.

Just don’t do anything. Just don’t touch it. Don’t touch anything. Let people that have responsible ideology and policy do the heavy lifting. So, Governor Gavin Newsome, podcaster Newsome, I haven’t talked about him for a little bit. You think he’s going to get the uh the 2028 nominee? I don’t think he does. I think Kla Harris does. I think Kla gets it with AOC. Oh god. Fingers crossed that happens. Oh my word. That’s going to be great. I don’t think Gavin Newsome gets it. I think he’s an outsider. I I think he’s got too many buyer objections. Meaning the Democrats actually recognize that. H yeah, rest of the country is going to look at him and go, we don’t want our state, our city to look like California.

Therefore, maybe he’s got enough pull. Maybe he’s got, you know, from from all of his dueling ex interchanges with Trump cuz he’s consistently going after Trump in social media, right? Just poking fun at him, just poking the bear. But where does that really get you? Where does that get you? Top of mind. Okay, you ruined California. You’re already top of mind. Well, we know what you’re doing. Rest of the country knows what he’s done. I don’t think people would vote for him, but hey, let’s give it a rip anyway. Nah, I think um 107 days Kla Harris and oh AOC. So podcaster Newsome condemned the order Friday, calling the Trump administration’s use of the Defense Production Act reckless and illegal and pledging to fight the directive.

Hey, you need the oil. You’re importing too much. You got you got to get things going back around again. Wildlife, sea life, h if there’s a little lake, it’ll work itself out. I mean, it’s a renewable source, right? A little bit of damage to the the ecology is worth it to, you know, bring the economy back, in my words. But it reminds me of of when um when Greg Abbott was closing down the border in 2023, late 2023, and he had all these lawsuits going back and forth with the United States government, with Joe Biden. Joe Biden is basically saying, “Hey, take all those barriers out of the Rio Grand River because the government is not able to do their job.” He just wanted all the criminal illegals to just siege over into Texas.

And Abbott, Texas’s governor, currently running again for a fourth term, wasn’t having it. And he said, “Hey, not only is this the US border, this is Texas border, and we’re not about to have what you want, which is just a wide open border pouring over drugs, pouring over human trafficking, sex trafficking, you name it.” and then us ask as Texas act as Uber drivers to send them to whatever sanctuary city that they want. And Abbott just basically put his foot down and there was just lawsuit after lawsuit. But the United States suing a United State to have a wide open border. That’s kind of what this reminds me of.

Newsome saying it’s reckless and illegal. Yeah. We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see. I mean, I don’t think so. Drill, baby, drill. His office argued that restarting the Sable Offshore pipeline would have little effect on global oil prices, citing estimates that its output would represent roughly 0.05% less than a half% of total oil production. You know what the big thing is, though? It’s a start in the right direction. It’s going the right way instead of yet one more refinery closing. And you know what? I don’t think California, the um car, clean air, whatever board, I don’t think they’re going to back off the proposals they have that are going to bake make refining oil in California basically not doable and the remaining refinery shut down.

I don’t think California’s government, they’re just hellbent on shutting down big oil. that they just they just want to end it without any look around at hey what might this impact like not only prices but you got a scarcity problem and that’s going to be in California. Imagine being Newsome going into an election in 2028 and just, you know, year and a half earlier had a massive, massive oil supply, gasoline supply, diesel fuel supply, jet fuel supply crisis in California because they’re so dependent upon imports. And it’s not only California, it’s Nevada, it’s Arizona, it’s the adjoining states, right?

You have something just crazy like that happened. You know what? Nuome would just blame Trump, wouldn’t he? He just orange man bad. He caused the war. This is terrible. Well, yeah, you made your own situation way way worse by having this terrible policy that was just it’s virtue signaling. That’s all it is. Virtue signaling. Oh, we’re such great human beings. We’re so clean. Governor also pointed to the pipeline’s history, noting that a 2015 spill near Refugeio State Beach released more than 140,000 gallons of crude oil. It got cleaned up though, right? Got cleaned up. You had some birds that had a little bit of, you know, oil on their wings.

They didn’t do so well, but yeah, it’s kind of part of the evolutionary process. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? And caused widespread environmental and economic damage along the Santa Barbara coast. You know what? casualties of war. You’re gonna have some issues. You go to battle, you do something, you’re going to have some issues at times. Things are going to break down. It It happens. It happens. California will not stand by while the Trump administration attempts to sacrifice our coastal. What a bunch of nonsense. And our 51 billion coastal econ economy. Well, if you don’t, you know, the 51 billion dollar coastal economy is true.

8% of California’s economy GDP is oil and oil products, right? But it takes that to create the other 92%. So, you don’t have your your basics, your own basic consistent supply, being able to make your own gasoline products, jet fuel, whatever you need. If you don’t have that, you’re hosed because you got nothing because everything is dependent upon oil and oil products, gasoline, diesel, whatever you want to call it. Everything is dependent. And without that, you’re hosed. You’re just sitting there lame duck. Just ah, yeah, nothing’s going on here. Not going to do anything. I think one of the um interesting things about all this is we could have some real social unrest.

You remember the oil crisis or the energy crisis of 1970? What was that like? Was that 75 somewhere in there? And you had you had to line up to get your your quota of gasoline. Everybody, you know, basically, hey, everybody come to the gas station once a day, whatever that was. I was a little kid in the back seat going, “What’s going on?” remember hearing stories or my dad talking about it or witnessing it or watching it. People fighting over, you know, being the next in line because there was only one more, you know, aotment of gas that it was going to be coming up out of the pump. It was, it was down to the last drags.

They’re going to be closing up soon. People are getting really worked up. Are we going to have some of that? We could. I think we very easily could, especially in California. It could happen. It could happen. and I’ll podcast that. Make sure you’re subscribed, that notification bell. I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining. Bye for now.