A Pipeline Fight. A Political War. Here's How A Small Oil Company Became A Weapon In Trump's Assault On California.

The helicopter carrying President Donald Trump’s top energy deputies touched down in the hills above Santa Barbara on a recent morning.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright took their places beneath an American flag. The reason for their visit lay in a small valley below: an oil processing facility owned by Sable Offshore Corp.

The men spoke derisively to the assembled cameras and a small cadre of oil executives about Gov. Gavin Newsom and the ruin they say he has brought to the state’s energy industry. California, Wright opined, stands apart from other oil-rich states for policies “that have stunted industry and oil and gas development so much.” And, he made clear, Washington wants it brought to heel.

“California is so extreme … we certainly are using here all of the federal authorities we have,” Wright said.

In swooping down to lob threats at Newsom, the cabinet officials were coming to the support of Sable, an oil operation that ran to the Trump administration for help in a fight with California to get its oil flowing through an infamous pipeline. The firm’s saga illustrates the power the president is willing to bring to bear on projects that align with two of his goals: increasing American oil production and bulldozing political rivals.

After Wright and Burgum’s visit, Newsom’s office fired back with its own volley of criticism, highlighting how much the price of gasoline had risen nationwide in recent months, and linking the spike to Trump’s attacks on Iran.

“This is what incompetence looks like, and no number of taxpayer-funded trips for photo ops on oil platforms can distract from that fact,” Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez said in a statement.

Newsom weighed in on the Trump administration’s actions on behalf of the company in an April statement.

“Americans are getting zero cents of relief at the pump from Sable like Chris Wright promised, because no drop in the bucket like Sable can make up for Trump’s war choking off a fifth of the world’s oil supply,” Newsom said. “Meanwhile, a lawbreaking oil company is raking in the profits while Americans are paying billions more for gas at the pump.”

Tough talk notwithstanding, Sable is likely only the beginning. Wright said he is prepared to “do everything we can to champion [oil] production” in California. During the event near Santa Barbara, he floated the idea of changing California’s refinery regulations, reshaping its pipeline system and making the state home to a giant cache of oil to deploy in case of emergency. Trump has already invoked federal emergency defense powers to steamroll the state in the fight over Sable.

“Sable was a no brainer because [the] state was blocking that production … so all you had to do, a stroke of a pen, and you could bring on 60,000 [barrels of oil] a day,” said Robert Waldron, CEO of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, one of California’s largest oil pipeline operators. He met with Wright last month, he added, and urged further action.

“In the next two to three months, I would expect them to do stuff similar to what they did with Sable, with the [emergency defense powers] and executive orders on all kinds of stuff,” Waldron said. “They’re just trying to figure out what to do.”

Houston-based Sable bought a trio of dormant oil platforms in federal waters off the coast of Santa Barbara in 2024 and immediately set about bringing them back online.

The rigs had been idle since 2015, when the pipeline system that had carried oil pumped by the offshore platforms to shore ruptured, causing a major spill. Despite the fact that a considerable amount of oil remained under the ocean floor, Exxon Mobil, which had operated the platforms for decades, failed to get the operation back up and running in the face of opposition from local officials and environmental groups.

But Sable’s chairman and chief executive, a veteran oil man named Jim Flores, thought he could get the job done. His company purchased the platforms and pipeline and set about securing the permissions needed from various state agencies to restart the flow of oil.

From the get go, the same environmental organizations that had dogged Exxon Mobil, not surprisingly, opposed Sable. But there were early signs that the Newsom administration, if not a vocal supporter, might be amenable to reopening the pipeline.

The governor had spent the previous two years slamming the state's oil companies over high gas prices, and in October 2024, he signed a special session bill targeting refineries. But when a pair of companies announced plans to shutter two of the state’s remaining nine gasoline-producing oil refineries, the prospect of losing nearly 20 percent of the state’s refining capacity pressured Newsom to shift toward a more oil-friendly stance.

It was during this period, in the winter of 2024 and spring of 2025, that California waived some of Sable’s regulatory requirements and gave it permission to complete work on a section of the pipeline in a state park, both key steps on the path to restarting operations.

In these early days, Flores recalled in an interview, Sable’s relationship with the state government was “excellent,” even though the company wasn’t in direct contact with the governor’s office.

“They didn’t want to talk to us, we said, ‘Fine, we’ll just follow the rules,’” Flores said.

By May 2025, the outlook was more mixed. On one hand, the company was enjoying vocal support from golf legend and investor Phil Mickelson, and from the Trump administration’s Interior Department, which permits offshore oil operations like Sable’s. But the state had not given the green light to reopen the pipeline, and the company was in open conflict with the Coastal Commission, which levied an $18 million fine on Sable for its alleged disregard of a stop work order.

The company’s relationship with the state went from iffy to outright adversarial that summer.

In July, Newsom’s office began circulating a bill proposal that would streamline the permit process for onshore drilling, but heap additional regulatory requirements on Sable’s pipeline. It was an olive branch to environmentalists, who were incensed by the proposal. The measure became a centerpiece of a sprawling energy deal negotiated by Newsom, which he signed in September.

“They tried to sabotage our project by passing legislation … to try to keep us from restarting,” Flores said.

The sweeping energy deal, he said, was the point when he decided to turn away from California and instead court the Trump administration to get permission to restart the oil pipeline system.

The same day that Newsom signed his energy deal, Flores wrote a letter to Burgum and Wright, who together lead the Trump administration’s National Energy Dominance Council, asking for help in light of the state Legislature “creating barriers” for the company.

The NEDC, an influential White House council tasked with expediting priority projects through the complex web of federal regulations, played a key role in elevating Sable to a federal priority. While the NEDC largely operates behind the scenes, signs of its involvement have spilled into public view.

In a leaked October recording of Flores obtained by Hunterbrook Media, the executive bragged that Sable was the “number one project” for the NEDC. (Sable initially told Hunterbrook that it believed the recording had been AI generated or altered, but later formed a special committee to investigate the story’s allegations and the audio recording. The company did not respond to a request for comment on the call.)

Then, in February, Jarrod Agen, the NEDC’s executive director, commented during a conference that his council was “working with Sable,” helping them with permitting issues and looking into what additional assistance it could offer. He accused California of making a “political, ideological decision over pragmatism” by not allowing Sable to restart the pipeline, adding that the state “would rather pay more from a foreign country to get oil into California, for political reasons.”

The relationship between Sable and the Trump administration deepened quickly.

First, the company asked federal regulators to take oversight of its pipeline from the state, which they agreed to do. To get around the state barriers that remained, Sable’s lawyers asked the Department of Energy to invoke its national defense powers to order a restart. With the help of an executive order from Trump, Wright did so in March. Sable promptly got its oil flowing and made its first sales by the end of that month.

Sable’s ability, within a matter of weeks, to bring a significant amount of new oil to market, was a major reason why the administration was willing to go to bat for the company, according to Flores.

“We fit their message,” Flores said. “All these other projects are three to four years away. This is instantaneous.”

After Wright’s order, Sable’s operations became a front in the Trump administration’s open war with California. The mixed messages the Newsom administration had been giving about Sable shifted to a barrage of criticism from the governor himself.

“This is an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting,” Newsom said in March, referencing the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s charge that Sable committed environmental violations.

The state filed a flurry of lawsuits to halt Sable’s restart, which, so far, have failed to stop the company from following through on a plan to sell its oil to Chevron. California’s inability to restrain Sable has spurred celebrations from Trump administration officials eager to thumb their nose at Newsom with rock-and-roll videos, photo ops on Sable’s offshore platforms and general jeering at California’s high gas prices.

“Common sense, affordable, reliable, secure American energy is being produced by Sable,” Burgum said during the Santa Barbara event. “It’s lowering the cost of fuels here in California, in a state that has the highest gasoline prices in the country.”

Oil analysts haven’t seen evidence of Sable’s operation reducing gas prices in California, according to two fuel market experts POLITICO interviewed. Oil prices are closely tied to global commodity rates, and in California’s consolidated refinery industry, they said, one company having an additional local supply of oil isn’t enough to significantly move the needle on gasoline prices.

“I think it’s been more profitable for Chevron, for sure, but in terms of [a price reduction] flowing through to consumers, no,” Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that the Trump administration sees Sable as a win. And as the temperature between Trump and Newsom continues to rise, the political and policy incentives are lining up for the Trump team and its allies to continue muscling through changes in California’s oil and gas system, both as a way of needling Newsom and upping oil supply.

“We are trying to figure out, ‘How do you increase supply offshore and onshore, and then how do you get it to go north and south,’” Republican California Rep. Vince Fong said in an interview last month.

Newsom, other California elected officials, and environmentalists are continuing to search for ways to counter the Trump administration’s support of Sable, despite their failure so far.

The same day that Wright and Burgum spoke at Sable’s facility, dozens of environmental activists gathered 20 miles away in downtown Santa Barbara, carrying signs that read “oil spills kill” and “stop Sable.”

“[It’s] difficult dealing with a federal government that’s out of control and doesn’t respect the rule of law,” Assemblymember Gregg Hart, who represents Santa Barbara, said after the protest. “But ultimately, these issues are going to be decided by judges in courts based on laws, and we have the facts.”