offshore

For more than a year, a Texas oil firm has clashed with California officials over controversial plans to restart offshore oil operations along the Santa Barbara County coast.

Now, California’s feud with Sable Offshore Corp. has spread to the Trump administration.

On Friday, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced that he had filed suit against the federal government, alleging that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration had usurped jurisdiction of Sable’s oil pipelines in an “unlawful power grab.”

“California has seen first-hand the devastating environmental and public health impacts of coastal oil spills — yet the Trump Administration will stop at nothing to evade state regulation which protects against these very disasters,” Bonta said in a statement Friday. “California will not stand idly by as the President endangers California’s beautiful coastline and our public health to increase profits for his fossil fuel industry friends.”

Signs warn of an oil pipeline owned by Sable Offshore Corp.

(Al Seib/For The Times)

The attorney general’s petition, filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, challenges PHMSA’s attempt to federalize oversight of the onshore pipelines and its recent approval of Sable’s restart plan. Along with the Office of the State Fire Marshal, the agency that had been working to review Sable’s restart plan, the attorney general argues that PHMSA’s decisions violate the Administrative Procedure Act and asked the court to overturn them.

The federal pipeline agency falls under the U.S. Department of Transportation. Officials with the agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new case.

Regulatory oversight of the pipelines has become a major sticking point in the Houston-based company’s plan to revive three drilling rigs in federal waters off Santa Barbara County’s coast.

The pipelines are part of a network that connects the offshore platforms to to an onshore processing plant near Goleta and then further inland. The two lines in question are located entirely onshore. One of them burst in 2015 near Refugio State Beach, causing one of the biggest oil spills in the state’s history.

The former owner shuttered operation after that spill, but Sable announced in 2024 that it planned to restart oil production — a move that has sparked fear and concern among locals, environmental activists and state and local regulators.

The Trump administration didn’t immediately get involved, but it did signal its support for the project last year, as part of its goal to increase U.S.-made oil.

But in December, PHMSA officials reclassified the pipelines as “interstate” pipelines, citing their link to offshore rigs along the Outer Continental Shelf in federal waters.

Soon after that, the federal agency approved the pipelines for a restart, shocking many who had been working for more than a year to ensure Sable’s compliance with state and local laws.

Bonta on Friday called both those findings incorrect and illegal, saying the federal agency had “no right to usurp California regulatory authority … of potentially hazardous pipelines.”

Sable has repeatedly clashed with state and local officials.

Last year, the California Coastal Commission found that Sable had failed to adhere to the state’s Coastal Act despite repeated warnings and fined the company $18 million. In September, the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the company, accusing it of knowingly violating state environmental laws while working on repairs to oil pipelines that have sat idle since a major spill in 2015.

The company also remains entangled in several ongoing lawsuits, including one brought by the Central Coast Water Board — represented by Bonta’s office — that alleges the company repeatedly failed to follow state laws and regulations intended to protect water resources, repeatedly putting “profits over environmental protections.”

Sable Offshore Corp.’s Las Flores Canyon Plant operates in Goleta.

(Al Seib/For The Times)

The company denies that it has broken any laws and insists that it has followed all necessary regulations.

Bonta’s new lawsuit doesn’t directly address Sable’s restart plans, but focuses on Trump administration actions over the last few weeks, including its “attempt to evade state regulation.” Bonta argues the administration has put the state’s environment and residents at risk.

Bonta also argues that the change in oversight directly contradicts a consent decree reached after the 2015 oil spill, which determined the state fire marshal would review and approve any possible restart of the onshore pipelines.

“PHMSA’s current position represents a significant departure from this agreement and the way in which PHMSA historically viewed the pipelines,” Bonta’s office said in a statement.

Devon is awash with natural and historic attractions – great news for wildlife lovers and culture vultures heading here on a £9.50 Holiday.

Whether you’re fascinated by stories of the navy’s past, exhilarated by the sheer beauty of the coast or prefer to visit age-old market towns, there’s something to excite every type of traveller.

Of course, Devon is blessed with natural wonders such as its two national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, complete with its dark sky status.

You’ve also got five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to explore: Blackdown Hills, East Devon, North Devon Coast, South Devon and the Tamar Valley.

These are packed with natural and historical attractions, like the Tamar’s rich mining heritage landscape and the North Devon Biosphere, England’s largest sand dune system located around Braunton Burrows.

Among the top-rated historic attractions in Devon are Saltram, a Georgian house and gardens in Plympton, the 600-year-old Dartmouth Castle and Coleton Fishacre, a 1920s house with a grand garden in Kingswear.

We’ve spoken to local experts, plus Sun readers who have already enjoyed a £9.50 Holiday in this beautiful part of the world, to discover their recommendations for Devon’s best natural and historic attractions. Here’s what they said…

Walk, coasteering and belly boarding at Baggy Point

Surrounded by Croyde’s crashing waves and spectacular cliffs, Baggy Point is an impressive headland in North Devon.

The 300-ft-high site has an interesting history.

During the Second World War, it was used by the American forces to train for the Normandy Landings (lookout for the telltale remnants of this past, including dummy pillboxes on the plateau).

You can explore Baggy Point on foot, which Paul Braithwaite, General Manager at Ruda Holiday Park, recommends.

He says: “It takes about half an hour to get to the top, but you get incredible coastal scenery and some spectacular photo opportunities up there.”

Thrill-seekers can see the cliffs from a different angle with a coasteering session – or you can borrow one of the six wooden belly boards for free from the Baggy Point kiosk (during summer months) and leap into the sea of your own accord.

Meet Verity

Overlooking the Bristol Channel on Baggy Point in North Devon, a pregnant woman wields a sword overhead and holds the scales of justice while standing on a pile of law books.

This arresting sight is actually a 60ft bronze and steel sculpture called Verity.

It was created by world-famous artist Damien Hirst, who described it as a “modern allegory of truth and justice”.

Hirst, who lives in Ilfracombe, has loaned the statue to the town for 20 years, starting from when it was unveiled in 2012.

Tessa Lomas, owner of Sea Sauna in nearby Saunton recommends strolling to Stacc afterwards for cocktails and cake. Tessa, 31, said: “The pastry chef there is amazing and it’s all really good quality.”

Wildlife spotting in the national parks

Devon has two national parks, Exmoor and Dartmoor.

Both free to visit, they are incredible places to explore whether on foot, by bike or even on horseback (guided rides available).

While landlocked Dartmoor is famous for its granite “tors” and ponies, in north-east Devon, Exmoor meets the coast, and is also the UK’s first dark skies conservation area.

During the day, keep your eyes peeled for rare species, including butterflies and birds such as red grouse. The Valley of Rocks and Lynton circular walk offers plenty of wildlife spotting and coastal views.

See shipwrecks in South Devon

The rocky coast of Devon has been the cause of thousands of shipwrecks (some estimates suggest up to 5,000).

And you can get a glimpse of some of them if you know where to look.

Gem Krupa, Holiday Home Sales Manager at Challaborough Bay, suggests Hope Cove in South Devon where the wreckage of Empire Harry is visible at low tide.

She said: “You can hire a paddleboard from Bigbury-on-Sea (try Discovery Surf) or just take your snorkel. You can sometimes see seals hanging out there, too.”

After, swing by Hope & Anchor for a pint near the beach.

Park life

Sun reader Richard Tilley visited Cockington Country Park during his recent £9.50 Holiday at Parkdean Resorts Torquay.

The park is a mix of manicured gardens and rural countryside and woodland, with a historic manor house, thatched cottages and 11th-century church.

Richard, 62, from Devizes in Wiltshire, said: “It has a big old-fashioned cricket green and a little lake and stream. We had a cup of tea and visited all the little craft units.

“My partner watched the glass blowers and bought a bauble as a souvenir.”

Tip: Although the park is free to visit, you have to pay for parking (£1.80 per hour or £7 for four hours and over).

Market madness

For a shopping trip with a historic twist, Sun reader Dawn Brannigan recommends heading to Barnstaple Pannier Market in North Devon.

The current Guildhall building dates back to 1826, but Barnstaple’s trading history goes back even further, to Saxon times.

Dawn, 54, from Wakefield, was staying nearby at Golden Coast Holiday Park in Woolacombe when she visited Pannier Market.

She said: “It’s an indoor market with a historic feel. There’s also the Pottington car boot sale where I picked up loads of bargains.”

Royal William Yard and Drake’s Island

Plymouth has a fascinating naval history – after all, this is where the English fleet left in 1588 to confront the Spanish Armada.

The regenerated Royal William Yard area is steeped in history, having kept the naval fleet afloat in the 19th century.

Today, the restored Grade I and II Listed buildings are home to pulsing restaurants, galleries, shops and events such as live music and food markets.

Gem Krupa recommends the ferry to Drakes Island for history buffs, saying: “You can get a ferry through Plymouth Sound and do a tour of the island. You will see old cannons, mysterious tunnels and maybe even seals on the rocks.”

Wild swimming

Around a 35-minute drive inland from the South Devon coastline is a fantastic wild swimming spot on the River Dart.

Daniel Start, author of the new Wild Guide South West, said: “It’s one of the most beautiful wild swimming rivers in the UK.

In a deep gorge far upstream of Newbridge, you can lie out on the flat hot rocks above the serene beauty of Horseshoe Falls, a natural horseshoe-shaped water”fall.

“Below a deep pool, perfect for a refreshing swim, with opportunities for jumps from the surrounding rocks. From here a picturesque footpath leads up to the perfect village of Holne with a pretty pub.”

Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — When Mitt Romney launched Bain Capital in 1984, he struggled at first to raise enough money for the untested venture. Old-money families like the Rothschilds turned down the young Boston consultant.

So he and his partners tapped an eclectic roster of investors, raising more than a third of their first $37-million investment fund from wealthy foreigners.

Most of the foreign investors’ money came through corporations registered in Panama, then known for tax advantages and unusual banking secrecy.

Previously unreported details, documented in Massachusetts corporate filings and other public records, show that Bain Capital was enmeshed in the largely opaque world of international high finance from its very inception.

The documents don’t indicate any wrongdoing, and experts say that such financial vehicles are common for wealthy foreign investors. But the new details come as President Obama has criticized Romney for profiting from Bain Capital’s own offshore investment entities, which are unavailable to most Americans.

The Romney campaign declined to comment on the specifics of Bain’s early investors. Romney has argued that his offshore investments are entirely proper, and that he has paid all the U.S. taxes that he owes. The offshore funds do provide tax advantages for foreign investors, allowing Bain to attract billions of dollars.

“The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe,” Romney said in an interview this week with National Review Online.

The first outside investor in Bain was a leading London financier, Sir Jack Lyons, who made a $2.5-million investment through a Panama shell company set up by a Swiss money manager, further shielding his identity. Years later, Lyons was convicted in an unrelated stock fraud scandal.

About $9 million came from rich Latin Americans, including powerful Salvadoran families living in Miami during their country’s brutal civil war.

That first investment fund — used to invest in start-up companies and leveraged buyouts — paid out a stunning 173% in average annual returns over a decade, according to a prospectus prepared by an outside bank. It was the start of the private equity powerhouse that ultimately fueled Romney’s political career. He now cites his experience at Bain as a chief qualification for the White House.

Romney faced unusual complications when he launched Bain Capital, a spinoff of Bain & Co., the Boston consulting firm he joined when he graduated from Harvard Business School.

At the time, U.S. officials were publicly accusing some exiles in Miami of funding right-wing death squads in El Salvador. Some family members of the first Bain Capital investors were later linked to groups responsible for killings, though no evidence indicates those relatives invested in Bain or benefited from it.

Romney has said he checked the foreign investors’ backgrounds. His campaign and Bain Capital declined to provide specifics.

Alex Stanton, a spokesman for Bain Capital, said confidentiality rules barred him from commenting on the investors.

“The hyperbole of political campaigns cannot change the fact that Bain Capital has operated with high standards of integrity and excellence, including compliance with all applicable laws and regulations regarding the vetting of our investors in consultation with experienced counsel and other advisors,” he said. “Any suggestion to the contrary is baseless.”

Matt McDonald, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, also declined to discuss details of the original fund. “There were many investors who saw the opportunity of a firm that could help fix broken companies and help them grow.”

But when Romney and his partners started the firm, Bain & Co. founder Bill Bain — worried the new venture could fail — barred them from soliciting current clients or corporations that would have to publicly disclose the investment, according to an early Bain Capital employee.

Bain partners put in $12 million of their own money, then sought the rest from wealthy individuals.

Records show the first investment in Bain Capital — $1.25 million in June 1984 — was in the name of Jean Overseas Ltd., registered in Panama by Marcel Elfen, a Swiss money manager. Later, the investment was doubled.

The Panamanian shell company apparently was a vehicle for Lyons, the British businessman and philanthropist. Lyons died in 2008.

His son, David Lyons of Quebec, said in a phone interview that he had never heard of Jean Overseas, but he confirmed that his father was “absolutely” an early investor in Bain Capital and said that Elfen, who died last year, was his father’s money manager.

David Lyons said that wealthy Europeans like his father often invested through offshore shell corporations. “It allowed some confidentiality,” he said. “It allowed a lot of things.”

Jack Lyons worked as an outside consultant for Bain & Co., but that ended when he and three others were charged in the Guinness Affair, a stock scandal that rocked Britain. Convicted of fraud in 1990, he was spared prison time due to his failing health, but was stripped of his knighthood.

Romney and his partners also won over the money manager for one of California’s wealthiest families, the Crockers, whose family trust put in $4.8 million. Romney “was the most confident executive I’ve ever come across,” said William Swanson, who at the time managed the family’s investments.

Other early investors included Robert Maxwell, the British publishing baron, who invested $2 million. After his drowning death in 1991, investigators discovered Maxwell had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from his company’s pension funds.

But early on, the fundraising was still falling short. Harry Strachan, a Bain Capital partner who was born in Costa Rica to American missionary parents, knew Central American businessmen through his involvement in a Harvard-backed business school in Nicaragua. Why not pitch to them?

Romney and Bill Bain were initially “terrified of bringing in Central Americans,” Strachan told the Boston Globe in August 1994. “They were afraid of drug money.”

Reassured by Strachan, Romney flew to Miami to meet the group in 1984.

“My friends were impressed by Mitt and the team and signed up for 20% of the fund,” Strachan wrote in his self-published memoir, “Finding a Path.” He did not respond to requests for comment.

The group included some of El Salvador’s wealthiest people: coffee grower Miguel A. Dueñas; members of the De Sola family, also coffee exporters; and Ricardo Poma, whose family conglomerate now owns car dealerships and luxury hotels across Central America. Other investors included Frank Kardonski, who co-founded the Panama Stock Exchange, and Diego Ribadeneira, nowEcuador’sambassador to Peru.

Most of the money they put into Bain Capital was through corporations set up in Panama with names such as Velof Trust, Jolla and Universal Selling Co.

In the 1980s, Panama was “the country of choice for foreigners wanting to make investments on a confidential basis,” said Steven H. Hagen, a Miami lawyer who provides tax advice to offshore companies and international investors.

The use of an offshore corporation to invest in a U.S. business shields foreign investors from estate taxes, but not income taxes, Hagen said.

At the time, El Salvador was being torn apart in a civil war that ultimately left tens of thousands dead. The Bain investors — some of whom had their plantations seized and family members targeted — were waiting out the war in Miami.

“Many of them were trying to move their money elsewhere,” said Jeffery M. Paige, a University of Michigan professor who wrote a book about the Salvadoran ruling class. “It was a difficult transition, and of course their investment outlets were limited.”

Among the Bain investors were Francisco R.R. de Sola and his cousin Herbert Arturo de Sola, whose brother Orlando de Sola was suspected by State Department officials and the CIA of backing the right-wing death squads, according to now-declassified documents.

Orlando de Sola, who has denied supporting the death squads, is now serving a four-year prison term for unrelated fraud charges. In an interview at the prison in Metapan, El Salvador, he said he did not benefit from the family investment in Bain Capital.

Before Bain, the family’s holdings were based in El Salvador, he said. “I would say their relationship with Bain Capital was a step to diversify into foreign investments. But I insist to you, I was not part of it.”

The other Latin American investors declined or did not respond to requests to comment.

Other early investors were happy to talk about their lucrative early bet. Jack Hanley, former head ofMonsanto Co., put in $1 million.

“It seemed like a hell of a smart thing for me to do to ride their coattails,” said Hanley, now 83. “I got rich.”

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

melanie.mason@latimes.com

matea.gold@latimes.com

Special correspondent Alex Renderos in Metapan, El Salvador, contributed to this report.