Add The California Post on Google Sable Offshore is back pumping oil — and now it’s going to cost the company more to do business along the Santa Barbara coast.
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 Tuesday to nearly triple the annual coastal mitigation fee tied to Sable’s Santa Ynez Unit, raising it from $132,750 to $318,600.
Supervisor Joan Hartmann recused herself over a potential conflict because the company’s pipelines run near her property.
The fee hike comes after Sable restarted partial oil production from its offshore platforms around March, following its 2024 takeover of the Santa Ynez Unit’s platforms, processing facility and pipelines.
County officials said the higher fee will be retroactive to the restart of operations.
The fees have been imposed on offshore oil operators since the 1980s, with the money later awarded to nonprofits and other groups for coastal projects — from hiking trails and restoration efforts to the Cabrillo High School Aquarium in Lompoc.
The county calculated Sable’s new bill using the same number of “points” assigned to the Santa Ynez Unit when it was operating before the 2015 Refugio oil spill, though inflation has pushed the dollar amount higher.
Sable had asked the county not to make the increase retroactive.
Steve Rusch, the company’s vice president of environmental and government affairs, submitted a letter requesting that the higher fee take effect only after Tuesday’s vote.
The fee question also exposed an awkward wrinkle in the county’s ongoing legal and regulatory fight with Sable.
Because the county never approved transferring the old permits from Exxon to Sable — a decision upheld by a federal judge — Supervisor Bob Nelson asked who actually gets the bill.
The county sends it to both companies. Sable, however, is the one that pays it.
“We do recognize the conundrum we’re talking about so we do copy both parties,” Errin Briggs, deputy director of the county’s Energy, Minerals and Compliance Division, said.
Nelson suggested the county simply bill Exxon and let the former operator pass the charge along.
But Supervisor Steve Lavagnino backed the retroactive hike after asking whether the county had the authority to impose it.
“It’s kind of the same thing here, except now they restarted and we’re collecting more money,” Briggs said, according to Noozhawk.
“It’s gotta be fair both ways and it is, so I appreciate that,” Lavagnino said.
The fee fight is just the latest twist in Sable’s increasingly bitter battle with California regulators over its return to offshore oil production.
The county, California Coastal Commission and environmental groups have challenged the restart through various lawsuits, while the federal government has backed Sable’s operations.
