On February 27, 2026, Santa Barbara County Judge Donna Geck intends to uphold a preliminary injunction that blocks Sable’s restart of the Las Flores Pipeline system.
Sable challenged a July 2025 preliminary injunction against the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM), finding that it likely violated state law in its approval of a waiver that allowed Sable to restart the pipeline.
The injunction is part of a 2024 suit that environmental groups filed against the OSFM, arguing that the fire marshal did not comply with environmental review and pipeline safety laws before issuing the waivers for the pipeline.
Sable argued that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) recent assertion of exclusive jurisdiction over the pipeline “necessarily eliminates OSFM participation in the restart process.”
The PHMSA determined in December that the Las Flores Pipeline was an interstate pipeline under the Pipeline Safety Act rather than an intrastate public under state regulation. Sable argued
The court noted in its tentative ruling that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the issue of whether the Las Flores Pipelines constitute an interstate pipeline under PHMSA’s exclusive jurisdiction.
Until these issues are resolved, the court is subject to the terms of the 2020 Federal Consent Degree. The court stated that under the Federal Consent Decree, the Las Flores Pipelines may not be restarted without a waiver from the OSFM.
“[T]he Federal Consent Decree by its terms requires authorization from the OSFM, whether that authorization is couched in regulatory, contract, or collateral estoppel terms,” she wrote.
“The court is not persuaded on this record that administrative actions taken by PHMSA necessarily eliminates OSFM participation in the restart process.”