The Morning Rant

What's that? The judiciary is out of control?

You have no idea.

A superior court judge in Santa Barbara has decided that the federal government is subordinate to California diktats governing corrosion protection of oil pipelines running from offshore rigs. From that flowed an order that in spite of the President invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure petroleum supply during times of national emergency, California can continue its anti-petroleum jihad by demanding that oil companies navigate a labyrinth of opaque rules.

Notice that it is a superior court. That is the primary trial court in California...the bottom rung of the judicial ladder, populated by legal retards who aren't quite bright enough to chase ambulances and file slip-and-fall suits.

Sable Offshore's Federal Defense Falls Flat in Santa Barbara Court

Oil development off Santa Barbara County’s Gaviota Coast has long turned on fine legal margins — interstate versus intrastate, State Fire Marshal versus the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, court orders versus claims of immunity. On Friday morning, in the Santa Barbara courtroom of Judge Donna Geck, one of those margins snapped into focus.

Geck refused to lift the injunction blocking Sable Offshore Corp. from restarting its pipeline system — even as oil continues to flow.

That alone might sound like just procedural sparring, but this time, the ruling did something new: It rejected, for the first time, Sable’s argument that a federal order issued under the Defense Production Act allows it to sidestep state law and the court’s prior orders.

“This is the first time a court has recognized that the Defense Production Act order does not relieve Sable of its requirements under state law,” said Talia Nimmer, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).

Luckily the company is seemingly telling the judge to pound sand and continues to pump oil. You know, for national defense requirements that are self evident to anyone with a pulse and a passing familiarity with current events.

But the arrogance of a low-level functionary in the California court system is breathtaking. This wasn't a holding that pushed it up the ladder to courts that might actually have some sane legal perspective (although it's CA so probably not). No, this was a demand to stop, on pain of penalty. There is no sense that the federal government might actually have standing, or that the administration's use of the Defense Production Act might be of national import. No...this was simply the amazing self-centeredness of a rabid environmentalist with a soupçon of Trump Derangement Syndrome, all topped with a California leftist's hatred of all things military. So OF COURSE this hack in black was going to try to stop the oil from flowing. She got her 15 minutes, and when she next goes to her favorite vegan lunch cooperative for a meal, the other patrons will stand and clap, and she will bask in their adulation!

Never mind that America probably needs that oil to flow for national security reasons that are far more important than the remote possibility that some tidal snail's habitat gets a bit of oil in it.

And yes, that is mockery of the environmentalists and their insanity. America is cleaner now than it has ever been in the industrial age, and using the increasingly hypothetical risk of environmental damage to do real damage to our country is tantamount to supporting Iran and the terror networks that America is trying to destroy.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

posted by CBD at 11:20 AM

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