By Henry Dubroff Friday, November 21st, 2025

A unified lineup of Central Coast elected officials opposed the Trump Administration’s plans to open California’s coast to offshore drilling during a Nov. 21 press conference.

Congressman Salud Carbajal, (D-Santa Barbara) was joined by state and local representatives one day after the administration announced the Department of Interior would open sites in the northeast, Florida, the Gulf Coast and California for possible drilling.

Renewed drilling would be a “recipe for disaster,” Assemblymember Gregg Hart (D-Santa Barbara) said in prepared remarks. Carbajal said the current “environment of fear” in Congress means that legislative action to ban California drilling is unlikely in the Republican controlled legislature.

Santa Barbara County hosts 20 of the23 offshore platforms in California and three of the four in state waters although there is no oil flowing from the county due to an onshore pipeline break in  2015 that shut operations.

The Nov. 20 announcement does appear to have re-energized and environmental movement that has been set back by pre-emptive Trump Administration actions to roll back protections.  Gin Ando, a representative for Ventura-based Patagonia said the company was ready to fight to protect the $225 billion tourism industry against the risks of another offshore oil spill.

The 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara’s coast gave birth to the environmental movement and no administration has proposed new drilling since 1984. The oil and gas industry has shown little appetite for developing new fields offshore although Sable Offshore has proposed restarting three platforms it acquired from Exxon Mobil.

Even if bids were successful it would take years and billions of investment to replace pipelines, build new platforms and other installations and conduct drilling operations.