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The regional water board in December issued Sable a noncompliance notice for unauthorized discharge into waterways, while wildlife officials alerted the company of a potential Fish and Game Code violation.

Instead, wrote Pozen, the cutoff must be “limited in its effect to the particular program ... in which noncompliance has been so found.”

Carter’s oversight of those agreements took a sharp turn last year when the Alliance law firm, Umhofer, Mitchell and King, accused the city of noncompliance and asked the judge to fine it $6.4 million.

An HHS spokesperson confirmed that, saying that the letter is “only a preliminary document that does not contain any formal findings of noncompliance” and that Cedars-Sinai had cooperated throughout the investigation.

The report cited the passage in 2023 of a bill that gives the state power to set limits on refinery profit margins, with heavy penalties for noncompliance.