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A major Pacific oil reserve offline for a decade was restarted in only five months of work by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, despite pleas from Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and completion of a reported laundry list of permitting and reviews.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) announced Friday it has shepherded the reopening of the Santa Ynez Unit of the Pacific oil-producing region, which holds an estimated 190 million barrels of recoverable potential.
“The Trump administration is restoring energy independence and unleashing the full potential of American offshore resources like never before,” an Interior Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
“Under the leadership of Secretary Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior has taken decisive action to cut through red tape and streamline permitting processes that had stalled the development of Sable’s offshore energy resources for years.”
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Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, left, and Sen. Adam Schiff. (Reuters; Getty)
Santa Ynez has been off-limits since 2015, when an aging pipe broke and caused what NOAA said was 500 barrels of oil flowing into the ocean of the estimated 2,900 barrels released.
Houston-based Sable Energy purchased the site from ExxonMobil in 2024 and sought to reopen several platforms; the Trump administration has now obliged.
BSEE Deputy Director Kenneth Stevens said President Donald Trump made it clear U.S. energy should come from American resources and that the agency “helped bring oil back online safely and efficiently.”
“That’s what ‘energy dominance’ looks like: results, not delays,” he said, predicting three oil platforms to be online by the end of the year. The agency further described the move as going from zero energy in the Pacific for the past 10 years to near-full production in a matter of months.
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An Amtrak train passes as workers continue to clean the rocks and sand south of Refugio State Beach following an oil spill on May 19, 2015. (Reuters)
Schiff, along with Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., has been vocally opposed to Santa Ynez reopening.
In March, they wrote to California Gov. Gavin Newsom saying how the region is “still reeling from the fires in Los Angeles.”
“In addition, we face threats from the Trump administration to expand oil drilling everywhere, including offshore California, and to gut federal policies and agencies that protect our environment and tackle the ongoing climate crisis. As we know all too well, fossil fuel-driven climate change is severely impacting California and setting the stage for unprecedented disasters like the one we just experienced in Los Angeles,” they said.
“The economic, environmental, and human costs in our state are immeasurable.”
A source familiar with the reopening process confirmed that Interior had to navigate a slew of permitting, environmental approvals and regulatory roadblocks from Sacramento.
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Schiff and Carbajal warned of the “corrosion-prone pipeline” and reminded Sacramento of the Refugio spill. They thanked Newsom for “standing up to the threat of new federal offshore oil leasing.”
In April, Carbajal introduced a bill to permanently ban offshore oil exploration in California on the Outer Continental Shelf.
“Santa Barbara knows firsthand how devastating oil spills can be on our marine ecosystems and coastline,” he said in a statement at the time, adding California’s “world-famous coastline [must be] protected for future generations to enjoy.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Schiff and Carbajal for comment.
