Let California’s oil flow again

Few Californians welcome higher gas prices.

So they should cheer the news that Sable Offshore Corp. has resumed oil sales through the Santa Ynez Pipeline System in Santa Barbara County.

Sable announced Sunday that it had begun selling oil through the network –– idle since 2015 –– on recent national-security orders from the Trump administration.

Now, the firm is piping more than 50,000 barrels a day –– or roughly 66,000 full tanks of gas –– from storage in Las Flores Canyon to Pentland Station for sales and distribution.

Good.

More domestic oil supply restrains rising gas prices –– and curbs the cost of nearly any good or service transported to stores or consumers.

It also supports the US Armed Forces, provides a buffer against foreign-oil-supply disruptions (like now, for example) and improves US energy self-reliance and national security broadly.

“…. [W]e are providing American oil from American soil through an American pipeline to an American refinery [Chevron] for American consumers and the United States military,” said Sable CEO Jim Flores.

Sounds sensible … except to the usual suspects.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a serial litigator against the Trump administration, has sued to halt the pipeline reboot.

He claims the state, not the feds, should control whether or not (emphasis on not) Sable can ship and sell oil in California.

That reflex by state government –– always toward less oil production –– is a big reason Californians pay $6 a gallon for gas: $2 higher than the national average.

It’s sheer folly.

All for state climate policies that impose steep costs on Californians, enrich the politically connected through billions in green pork, and do near-zero to shift the trajectory of global temperatures.

In fact, stifling domestic oil sales can drive carbon emissions up, as oil from somewhere must backfill the lost local supply.

Typically: Imported oil arrives on carbon-belching long-haul tankers from carbon-spewing foreign producers with weak environmental standards.

And forget the pipe dream that California can simply ditch the dinosaur fuel anytime soon.

Fossil fuels are not only used in personal transportation, commerce, and aviation, but they’re also key to a host of products that power daily life, from plastics to fertilizers to medical devices such as ventilators, defibrillators, and IV bags.

The reality is that California, like the rest of the nation, needs oil.

And with the figurative turn of Sable’s spigot, common sense is flowing again.

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