By Katie Davis
If there was any doubt about Big Oil’s aggressiveness and belligerence, you would only need to look at what is going on in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties as ExxonMobil and its subsidiary, Aera Energy, are currently suing both counties.
In so doing, they threaten not only the environment, but the right of government to do its job and protect its residents from harm. Oil companies create a costly burden for taxpayers. Unlike other law-abiding businesses, oil companies routinely contest their property taxes and sue when they don’t get their way.
In Santa Barbara, ExxonMobil is suing the County for denying its oil trucking project. That proposal was denied by SB County Board of Supervisors in March based on the project’s significant and unavoidable harms to biological, water and cultural resources in the event of a spill. The plan would have added up to 24,800 oil-filled truck trips a year on coastal Highway 101 and hazardous Route 166 and restarted three offshore platforms off the Gaviota coast that have been shut down since a pipeline ruptured and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean and coastline in 2015.
Its bullying legal case against the County is full of exaggeration, hyperbole and novel legal claims.
A real-time accident happened March 2020 outside of Santa Maria when an oil tanker detached from a truck and rolled into the Cuyama River, spilling more than 4,500 gallons of oil. In January, Santa Barbara County prosecutors settled criminal and civil cases against the trucker and the trucking company.
In a related matter, Plains All American recently agreed to a $230M settlement over the 2015 pipeline spill that shut down Exxon’s platforms and sparked the oil company’s plan to truck the oil to refineries. The money will go to the fishing industry and property owners, among others. Exxon has itself sued Plains.
In Ventura, Aera Energy (owned jointly by ExxonMobil and Shell) and other oil companies have filed lawsuits against Ventura County seeking to invalidate the health and safety regulations in the General Plan — including the setbacks between residences, schools, and new oil drilling and a ban on flaring or venting gas.
The stakes are high as these lawsuits challenge the basic right of local jurisdictions to protect their citizens. Ventura County was forced to allocate $2 million to defend itself. And on March 24, a judge granted a petition to intervene in Aera Energy’s lawsuit. The petition was created by the Sierra Club, CFROG and Voices in Solidarity Against Oil in Neighborhoods (VISION).
The goal is not only to help defend Ventura County, but to defend people’s basic right to protect their health and safety through local governance.