The Trump administration is gearing up to use a Cold-War-era law to allow an oil and gas company to resume drilling off California’s coast, an unprecedented use of emergency power that will almost certainly face legal challenges.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday allowing the Energy Department to invoke the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that gives the president authority to require businesses and corporations to take steps necessary to “ensure national defense preparedness.”
The order came after reporting from Bloomberg News earlier this week that the administration will use the act to create a pathway for Sable Offshore Corp, a Texas-based company that owns a dormant system of pipelines and an oil rig off the California coast, to restart offshore drilling.