Trump administration ratchets up its fight to get more oil flowing from California

(AP) — The Trump administration is ratcheting up its fight to get more crude flowing through California and reverse the state’s efforts to move away from fossil fuels. Its latest salvo is a federal review of California’s coastal management program, which is run largely by a state commission that has had a powerful role for decades in shaping development along the coast. Environmental advocates fear federal officials could use the review to strip the California Coastal Commission of its ability to have a say in projects involving federal agencies that affect the state’s rugged coastal bluffs, pristine beaches and world-class surfing spots.

The administration, citing a need for energy security and job creation, has already announced plans for new offshore oil leases in California as well as Florida, where the federal government has not allowed drilling since 1995 because of concerns about oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Trump officials also helped a Texas firm jump-start an old pipeline system that had been idled since its 2015 rupture caused one of California’s worst oil spills, blackening beaches for 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles and polluting habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles. Federal officials also recently took a step toward authorizing fracking on an old oil platform 9 miles (14 kilometers) off Ventura County — a move opposed by the state’s coastal commission.

“It’s just part of that overall belief that they have, that they’re going to get rid of renewables and go back to good old-fashioned fossil fuels, and what better place to start than California?” said Deborah A. Sivas, a professor of environmental law at Stanford Law School. “We’re the feds — we’re going to tell the state what to do.” California has some working offshore rigs, but there has been no new oil leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s and no new state leasing for even longer.

The state barred new offshore oil leases after a catastrophic spill in 1969 spewed between 3.5 million and 4.2 million gallons of crude into the Santa Barbara Channel. The disaster killed thousands of seabirds and helped give rise to the modern environmental movement. California now uses so much solar and wind energy that nearly half the state’s electricity came from renewable resources in 2024, according to the state’s energy commission.