California’s 37th District Assemblymember Gregg Hart, D-Santa Barbara, is fighting against President Trump’s energy efforts in California with legislation that would prohibit federal offshore oil leases issued after Jan. 1, 2026 from using existing state oil and gas infrastructures.
Amid federal efforts to undermine California’s authority to shield its coastline from the impacts of offshore drilling, the bill is one of the strongest pieces of legislation on offshore drilling in nearly 40 years.
Its fate now lies in the hands of Governor Gavin Newsom, who must sign or veto the bill by Sept. 30. The bill passed through the Senate on Aug. 26. It was introduced on Feb. 21, 2025 and passed through Assembly on Jun. 4, 2025.
“I’m hopeful Governor Newsom will sign it into law because we need to protect our coast from the threats that are coming from the Trump administration,” Hart said at a Democratic Party Labor Day Picnic in Goleta. “California’s coast is a jewel of the planet, not just California, and we need to do everything we can to protect it.”
The bill would also require the State Lands Commission to consider significant environmental and public health factors before approving lease changes and mandate the use of the best technology for pipelines transporting offshore oil.
If signed into law, the bill would build on the state’s landmark environmental legislation regulating offshore drilling.
In 1994, California banned offshore drilling in state waters. And in 2018, during the first Trump administration, California prohibited new leases for infrastructure transporting oil and gas through state waters.
Marty Farrell, an attorney from the Sacramento-based California Coastkeeper Alliance, said that Hart’s bill would “give the state a really strong tool to protect the coast from a lot of federal attacks.”
AB 1448 would close a loophole by blocking oil companies from using existing state pipelines to get its oil from newly leased federal properties to shore.
“Hart’s bill takes the next really important step,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, the original sponsor of Hart’s bill. “It’s important to protect our coast from the threat of new oil leasing from the Trump administration and to make sure we don’t prolong the life of aging pipelines.”
Trump last year released a five-year plan that would open the California coast to offshore drilling for the first time in nearly 50 years. The last time the federal government issued a new lease sale off the California coast was in 1984.
The Refugio Beach Oil Spill that devastated Santa Barbara County in 2015 was caused by a corroded, then-28-year-old pipeline.
Krop said that while the federal government certainly wouldn’t be pleased if this bill passes, it has weak legal footing to sue the state. She pointed to the Submerged Lands Act and the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, two federal laws from 1953, which say that coastal states’ jurisdiction extends three miles offshore.
The legislative momentum of Hart’s bill comes at a time when his district, which encompasses all of Santa Barbara County, finds itself at the center of a hodgepodge of energy-related issues coming from the federal government.
In addition to Trump’s five-year plan for offshore drilling, his administration has also used executive wartime powers to demand the restart of a pipeline operated by Sable Offshore Corp—the same pipeline that caused the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill.
The restart has drawn pushback from a coalition of local environmental organizations as well as elected officials up and down the state.
“When Monique [Limon] and I get up and talk about offshore oil drilling, people listen because they know we’ve lived through this,” Hart said. “You do too. We have a strong reputation in Sacramento.”
