NEWS: Sen. Schiff Presses Sable Offshore After Sidestepping Lawmakers’ Questions, Refusal of Transparency

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is demanding answers into Sable Offshore’s efforts to restart oil drilling off the California coast after the company failed to provide sufficient answers to a May inquiry from multiple California Members of Congress into Sable’s collaboration with the Trump administration to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) in relation to this project. Sable also refused to provide information on its requests and communications with administration officials related to the restart. “I urge you to cease all operations in the SYU and consider the long-term legal and financial ramifications of collaborating with the Trump administration to circumvent state law. I again advise that we will continue our oversight and investigative efforts in the next Congress and ask Sable to be responsive to the requests included in the May 27 letter and reiterated above…Californians are owed a transparent accounting of your company’s repeated circumvention of state law,” the Senator wrote in a letter to Sable Offshore Corp.’s CEO and Chairman Jim C. Flores. Background: Senator Schiff has been a strong opponent of restarting oil drilling off the California coast and has advocated for renewable energy sources to safely bring down energy costs for Californians. Schiff and U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.-24) joined local Central Coast environmental leaders to rally against the Trump administration’s attempt to restart offshore oil platforms owned by Sable. Schiff published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times strongly opposing Sable Offshore Corporation’s attempts to restart oil drilling operations. Additionally, Schiff and Carbajal wrote to Governor Gavin Newsom raising concerns about the potential restart of offshore oil drilling operations along California’s Gaviota Coast by Sable Offshore Corp., and demanded answers from the Trump administration on its involvement in Sable Offshore Corporation’s attempts to restart offshore oil drilling using the same pipelines that caused the Refugio State Beach oil spill of 2015. The full text of the letter can be found here and below. Dear Mr. Jim Flores: I write to follow up on the letter from 11 Members of the California congressional delegation to your company dated May 27, 2026. I acknowledge that Gibson Dunn transmitted a response letter on Sable’s behalf on June 10, 2026. However, the June 10 letter from Gibson Dunn failed to respond to any of the requests included in the May 27 congressional letter to the company. Because the company’s letter was nonresponsive to the letter from 11 Members of Congress, I reiterate the requests posed in the June 10 letter and ask Sable to provide this information: When did your relationship with President Donald Trump begin? Please outline those communications, including any meetings with Trump, his family, or his representatives, to date. When did your relationship with Secretary Chris Wright begin? Please outline those communications to date. Did Sable, its executives, attorneys, or other representatives at any point discuss with President Trump or any member of his administration or campaign the SYU project and did you link it in any way with any campaign or political donations made by you or executives of your company? Did you, your attorneys, your representatives, or any executive of Sable ever make contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations or any other entity for which public disclosure would not be required, and were these contributions ever discussed with President Trump, any member of his family, any member of his campaign, or any political appointee of the current administration in relation to the SYU project? Did you, your attorneys, your representatives, or any executive of Sable ever discuss campaign or political donations at all—before or after it was given—with President Trump, any member of his family, any member of his campaign, or any political appointee of the current administration? What was communicated and when did these communications begin? Has Sable, its executives, attorneys, or other representatives ever communicated with anyone in the DOE General Counsel’s office or the White House Counsel’s office? Please detail those communications. Has Sable, its executives, attorneys, or other representatives communicated with anyone in the Executive Office of the President, the President, the President’s campaign, or any Cabinet members since the start of President Trump’s second term? Or direct others to do so on your behalf? If so, please outline those communications to date. Please provide any and all communications to the Department of Energy (DOE) from Holland and Knight, asking DOE for a governmental legal opinion to invoke the Defense Production Act. Who initiated the request to DOE to ask for an opinion on the Defense Production Act?  Did Sable’s attorneys, DOE, or a member of the President’s administration advise you to do so? Did you communicate nonpublic information to a select group of investors concerning your strategy to convince Secretary Wright, Secretary Lutnick, or President Trump to assist in your preemption of California law, and did this strategy involve offering a round of golf with Phil Mickelson to Secretary Lutnick or having an intermediary promise President Trump to affix gold leaf to your offshore oil platform in exchange for helping to override California law? Additionally, the central argument in the letter from Gibson Dunn appears to be that Sable is merely complying with a government order directed at the company through the Defense Production Act. However, the letter completely neglects the fact that, according to the federal government itself, Sable asked the administration to issue such an order. The Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion specifically references Sable’s request, which was submitted to DOE via Holland & Knight (emphasis added below): See Letter for Jonathan Brightbill, General Counsel, Department of Energy, from James W. Noe, Partner, Holland & Knight LLP, Re: SableOffshore Corp.— Request for Action Under the Defense Production Act at 1 (Dec. 12, 2025) (“Sable Letter”). The fact that Sable refuses to acknowledge this or provide a copy of its own request to the federal government for the American public to see is quite telling. Once again, I urge you to cease all operations in the SYU and consider the long-term legal and financial ramifications of collaborating with the Trump administration to circumvent state law.  I again advise that we will continue our oversight and investigative efforts in the next Congress and ask Sable to be responsive to the requests included in the May 27 letter and reiterated above. I also reiterate our request to preserve all records and communications related to your efforts to work with the Trump administration or campaign to restart the SYU from January 1, 2024, to March 13, 2026, and on an ongoing basis moving forward. Californians are owed a transparent accounting of your company’s repeated circumvention of state law. ###