← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Wright and Burgum on Varney & Co.: Restarting Sable Offshore California and Trading SPR Barrels

June 5, 2026 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:06:15

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum joined Fox Business’s Varney & Co. live from the Sable oil project offshore Santa Barbara, California, on June 5, 2026, according to the Department of Energy’s recording. Wright said the platform’s wells were drilled decades ago and sat idle, and that the administration used the Defense Production Act to bring the production on, raising California’s oil and gas production by 20 percent by, as he put it, turning a valve and returning already-drilled wells to production. He said California has 30 military facilities and imports over 60 percent of its oil from overseas, so the restart improves energy security for military operations in the state.

Burgum said the United States can drill offshore more safely and cleanly than anywhere else in the world, and blamed California state policies for the highest gasoline and diesel prices in the lower 48. He said the number of California refineries has fallen from 40 to six under regulatory pressure, that the state’s top crude supplier as of February 1, 2026 was Iraq, and that California has made itself an energy island, which he called an absolute national security risk.

Asked about low inventories, Wright said the Biden administration drew over 200 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve four years ago without a supply disruption. He said the administration is not selling reserve barrels outright but flowing oil to the market in the short term through exchanges, getting 1.25 barrels back next year for each barrel flowed out, and that deals already made, worth over $3 billion to the taxpayer as he stated the value, will add 40 million barrels to the reserve after the conflict at no taxpayer cost. On coal, Burgum said he had no emissions concerns about U.S. coal plants, which he said are the cleanest in the world, noted the president’s $700 million coal announcement raised by the host, and said coal was the world’s top electricity source in 2025 and would remain so, framing the administration’s approach as energy addition for affordability and for winning the AI race against China.

Why it matters

The Sable restart is the administration’s proof-of-concept for using emergency authorities to revive idled production in a hostile state regulatory environment, and the SPR exchange structure Wright described is designed to rebuild the reserve without an appropriation fight.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright and Secretary Burgum Join Fox Business’s Varney & Co. — June 5, 2026”, 2026-06-05 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-06-05). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.