Climate Activists Storm Newsom's Office, Demand Halt to Zombie Offshore Oil Pipeline

Sacramento — Governor Gavin Newsom’s campaign to build the environmentally destructive Delta Tunnel and Sites Reservoir to enrich his Big Ag Donors and his role in overseeing the destruction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations are not the only anti-environmental policies he has become notorious for.

On July 21, a dozen outraged climate justice activists descended on Governor Gavin Newsom's office, demanding that he stop caving to Big Oil and block a new offshore drilling pipeline and expanded onshore drilling in California.

Last Friday, Texas oil company Sable moved one step closer to restarting the same corroded offshore drilling pipeline that caused the disastrous 2015 Refugio oil spill the fouled miles of California Coast, after a Santa Barbara County Superior Court ruling, according to the Oil and Gas Action Network.

Thousands of advocates and nearly half of California’s Democratic Congressional delegation, have demanded that Newsom halt this disastrous pipeline. So far, he’s remained silent, advocates noted.

"Activists were at Newsom's office to make sure that our message is heard: Californians do not want another oil pipeline,” said Ilonka Zlatar with Oil and Gas Action Network, one of the organizers of the action. “His office has ignored letters from hundreds of organizations, dozens of state and federal representatives, and thousands of Californians who do not want to see the restart of a failed pipeline that caused the second largest oil spill in CA history.”

“California has done such a good job at reducing our oil demand that we are now entering the messy but inevitable mid-transition period of the energy transition. This is not the time to backslide on climate commitments, not the time to open up more lands to drilling, not the time to restart pipelines. The fastest way through this transition is bold vision and real plans to clean, renewable energy sources, not giving into Big Oil's attempts to drag us backwards,” Zlatar concluded.

It gets worse. Communities for a Better Environment leaked language of a trailer bill from the Newsom administration, calling it a “blank check” to increase onshore drilling statewide with no environmental review.

“We absolutely reject this outrageous blank check for unlimited oil drilling across the state of California for the next decade,” CBE said in a statement.”Make no mistake: the climate impacts of this will hurt every community, but it will most harm communities of color, Indigenous, migrant and low-income communities who are already disproportionately harmed by oil and gas extraction.

“It abandons California’s equity, climate, and public health goals and does nothing to address affordability. We demand the Governor immediately pull back this dangerous plan and work with communities and the Legislature on real solutions that protect our health, our climate, and our future,” CBE concluded.

Since taking office in January 2019, Governor Newsom’s administration has approved about 18,515 oil and gas well permits.

For the first six months of 2025, 452 total permits were approved. Seven permits for new drilling were approved in the first six months, while 445 oil well permits to rework existing wells were approved, according to data compiled by the Fractracker Alliance and Consumer Watchdog on https://newsomwellwatch.com.