California — the state that banned drilling, shut down refineries, sued oil companies, and mandated that everyone drive an electric vehicle they can’t afford to charge — is running out of gasoline. Fuel inventories are reportedly 30% below normal levels. Gas prices are screaming toward $7 a gallon. And Governor Gavin Newsom, the guy who caused all of this, went on television and blamed Donald Trump.
You genuinely cannot parody these people. They parody themselves and then demand a standing ovation.
The numbers here tell a story so obvious that a kindergartner could follow it. California used to produce 40% of America’s oil. Today? Less than 2%. Crude oil production in the state has been cut in half. The number of operating refineries dropped from 23 in the year 2000 to 12 today — and it’s about to be 11 when Valero’s Benicia refinery closes at the end of this month. Two refineries responsible for nearly 20% of California’s gasoline supply have either closed or are closing. Phillips 66 is gone. Valero is walking out the door. And Chevron — which accounts for 30% of the state’s remaining refining capacity — has openly warned that they might shut down within a decade too.
So what did California do when they saw the fuel supply collapsing? They added more regulations. The California Air Resources Board is rolling out new carbon tax rules later this year that will reduce free emissions allowances for refineries — which is bureaucrat-speak for “we’re going to make it even more expensive to produce the gasoline you desperately need.” The state’s cap-and-invest carbon tax is getting more expensive every year. California’s gas taxes and fees run 70.9 cents per gallon compared to the national average of about 35 cents. State-specific costs now make up 55% of every gallon of gas sold in California. More than half the price at the pump is Sacramento’s fault.
Mike Umbro from Californians for Energy and Science put it perfectly: “Sacramento’s saying, ‘You don’t have a long-term future here,’ so the companies aren’t going to dump a bunch of money in to increase production.” That’s not complicated. That’s not a supply chain mystery. That’s cause and effect. You tell oil companies to drop dead, and then oil companies leave. And then you don’t have oil. This is not rocket science. This is what happens when you let people who think electricity comes from the wall socket make energy policy.
California now imports almost two-thirds of its crude oil from foreign tanker ships. Sixty percent of the crude feeding California’s refineries comes from foreign countries. Foreign oil imports have tripled in the last 20 years. So the state that lectures the rest of us about “energy independence” is now more dependent on foreign oil than it’s been in its entire history. And those supply lines run right through the Strait of Hormuz — the same waterway that Iran is currently threatening to turn into a toll booth. Beautiful planning, Sacramento. Really forward-thinking stuff.
Andy Walz, a Chevron senior executive, wrote a letter to state leaders warning that “continued erosion of California’s refining capacity risks increased reliance on imported fuels.” He told the CERAWeek energy conference that California could face gasoline and jet fuel shortages. Not “might eventually in some distant future” — could face them now. There are more than 30 U.S. military installations in California that depend on reliable fuel supply. The state’s energy policies aren’t just making life miserable for commuters — they’re a national security problem.
But here’s where the story gets good. While Newsom was busy blaming Trump and proposing budget subsidies for first-time electric vehicle buyers — because obviously the answer to a gas shortage is to spend money you don’t have on cars that need a power grid you also broke — the Trump administration actually did something about it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked the Defense Production Act back on March 13th to restart the Sable Offshore pipeline that had been shut down since a 2015 oil spill. The pipeline reopened the next day. It’s now processing about 50,000 barrels per day, which represents a 15% increase in California’s in-state oil production. That’s roughly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude replaced every month. Chevron committed to purchasing 20,000 barrels from the pipeline starting this month.
California’s response? They sued to shut the pipeline back down. The state that’s running out of gas sued to stop the pipeline that’s producing gas. The Justice Department fired back with a legal memo arguing the federal government can use the Defense Production Act to override state law during energy emergencies. They also sued to block a California law limiting drilling near homes and schools. The Interior Department announced it’s considering undersea fracking proposals. The DOE published a fact sheet titled — and this is real — “California’s War on American Energy Impoverishes Residents and Harms National Security.”
That’s not a fact sheet. That’s a diagnosis.
A UC Berkeley study from this year found that California has the highest adjusted poverty rate in the country when you factor in cost of living. Electricity costs 30.29 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to the national average of 17.45 cents — a 96% increase since 2014. Gas consumption has dropped 15% over two decades not because Californians are driving less, but because Californians are leaving. Petroleum diesel consumption has fallen by two-thirds. The state is literally shrinking itself out of energy demand, and it’s STILL running out.
And my absolute favorite detail in this entire saga is the Environmental Defense Fund’s California state director, Katelyn Roedner Sutter, who said the fuel crisis actually makes it “even more important to move forward” with the fossil fuel phaseout because it “underscores how vulnerable we are, being so dependent on fossil fuels.” Read that again. The state is running out of fuel because of anti-fuel policies, and the environmental lobby’s response is that we need more anti-fuel policies. That’s not energy policy. That’s a religion. They’d rather watch the state go dark than admit they were wrong.
California built this crisis brick by brick over twenty years. They banned the drilling. They taxed the refineries into oblivion. They tripled their dependence on foreign oil. They made gasoline so expensive that more than half the price is government-created costs. And now they’re standing in front of empty pumps wondering what happened.
We know what happened. Everyone who’s ever filled a gas tank knows what happened. The only people who don’t know are the ones who caused it — and they’re still in charge in Sacramento.
