LOS ANGELES— A federal judge has ruled that the Department of the Interior can’t pause a lawsuit over several offshore oil and gas lease extensions in the Santa Barbara Channel while the agency completes an environmental review. Friday’s ruling means that the case will now proceed to the merits and each side will present their arguments to the court.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Wishtoyo Foundation sued Interior and its Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in June 2024 for unlawfully issuing the lease extensions for the Santa Ynez Unit and ignoring possible harms and oil spill risk from the aging infrastructure.

“I’m relieved we’ll get the chance to make our case in court and explain how harmful restarting oil drilling from these aging offshore facilities could be,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This infrastructure already had a horrible oil spill that caused immense damage to California’s beautiful coast, and federal officials should have done a thorough review before giving it another chance to spill.”

A massive 2015 oil spill shut down production at the Santa Ynez Unit. But the owner at the time, ExxonMobil, was allowed to keep extending its 16 offshore oil and gas leases that would have otherwise expired. The spill, caused by a rupture in a corroded coastal oil pipeline serving the offshore operations, released what is believed to be about 450,000 gallons of oil near Refugio State Beach. The oil killed hundreds of birds and marine mammals, including dolphins and sea lions, and resulted in the closure of fisheries and beaches.

BSEE and Interior sought a pause to the lawsuit, called a voluntary remand, by claiming they would re-examine their decision to extend the leases. But the agencies did not ensure that no restart of oil drilling would occur while they were conducting the analysis, so the Center and Wishtoyo opposed the motion.

In seeking the pause, the agencies acknowledged that their original decision did not contain sufficient analysis of the issues raised by the lawsuit, including risks of oil spill, air quality concerns and the cumulative effects of restarting production.

The groups’ original suit asks the court to vacate the latest lease extensions for the Santa Ynez Unit and prohibit BSEE and Interior from issuing any future lease extensions for the infrastructure unless and until the agencies comply with the law. To fulfill that requirement, the agencies must do a full environmental analysis that considers the possible harms.

Without the extensions, each of the leases would have expired and Exxon would have been required to stop its oil and gas operations, permanently plug its wells, and decommission its other infrastructure in the Santa Barbara Channel. Extending these leases prolongs drilling off California and allows aging oil and gas infrastructure to remain, increasing the risks of oil spills and harms to public health, endangered species and our climate.

The lawsuit asserts that in extending the leases, BSEE and Interior failed to comply with the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In January the judge ruled that the Center and Wishtoyo could add additional claims under the National Environmental Policy Act to the lawsuit. The new claims challenge the agencies’ rubber-stamping of two other permits that enable the restart of oil and gas production at the Santa Ynez Unit and their reliance on a 40-year old environmental analysis to issue those permits.

To remedy these new claims, the Center and Wishtoyo have asked the court to declare the agencies’ actions unlawful, vacate the permits and order the agencies to conduct an updated environmental analysis.