LOS ANGELES (CN) — The Center for Biological Diversity and the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation will need to go to trial in their challenge to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s renewal of offshore drilling leases in the Santa Barbara Channel in California.
U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams Court on Friday denied both sides’ motions for summary judgment, as well as the separate motion brought by operator Sable Offshore Corp.
The judge, a Joe Biden appointee, concluded that the bureau’s May 2025 environmental assessment and decision regarding its previous renewal of the offshore leases — issued while the lawsuit was already pending — changed the underlying claims to such an extent that she couldn’t decide the case as a matter of law…