Independent Oil Producers Fight Back in Court

Another battle over California oil production is playing out in federal court, this time over an offshore operation near Santa Barbara.

As Courthouse News Service reports, the State of California and environmental groups are asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to shut down the recently restarted Santa Ynez Unit offshore oil operation and the pipeline system that carries its crude to shore.

This particular lawsuit does not directly affect California's independent onshore oil producers, but the larger issue certainly does.

Once again, the objective is to block oil production in California, even as California residents and businesses continue consuming enormous quantities of crude oil and petroleum products every day. The state may be able to stop production within its borders, but it cannot legislate away demand.

It can only decide where the oil comes from.

That is why CIPA's broader legal strategy matters. California's independent producers, along with mineral and royalty owners, are fighting in other court proceedings to defend their right to continue responsibly producing California crude. Among the most important of these battles are the legal challenges surrounding SB 1137, California's 3,200-foot setback law, which threatens existing wells and routine operations across some of the state's most productive oil fields.

For many independent producers, these are not abstract policy debates. They are fights over whether legally permitted wells can continue operating, whether privately owned mineral rights retain any value and whether family businesses that have produced energy in California for generations can survive an ever-expanding web of prohibitions.

Royalty owners face the same fundamental threat. When government action prevents production, the producer loses the ability to operate, but the mineral and royalty owner also loses income from property that may have been held by a family for decades.

CIPA's position is straightforward: Produce It Here.

California needs crude oil. California will continue using crude oil for transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, aviation, national defense, emergency response and thousands of everyday products. The real policy question is whether that oil should be produced here under some of the world's strictest environmental, labor and safety standards, supporting California workers and communities, or imported by tanker from thousands of miles away.

Stopping California production does not stop California consumption.

It simply outsources the production, the jobs and the economic benefits while increasing our dependence on foreign oil delivered across the ocean.

The Santa Ynez litigation is different from the cases involving CIPA's independent producers, but the common thread is unmistakable. Whether offshore or onshore, California continues to pursue policies designed to prevent the production of oil that Californians themselves still need and use.

That is why CIPA continues to fight in the Legislature, before regulatory agencies and, when necessary, in court.

Independent producers and royalty owners are defending more than individual wells or individual properties. They are defending the principle that lawful businesses and property owners have rights, that government agencies must follow the law and that California should not destroy its own domestic energy production only to replace it with more expensive foreign imports.

The answer is not complicated: If Californians need the oil, Produce It Here.