California Needs a Senator for Energy Security, Not Energy Surrender

California’s U.S. Senator Alex Padilla is again pointing the state in the wrong direction on energy. According to a CNN report, Senators Padilla and Patty Murray are asking U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to halt work on a proposed West Coast Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the Department of Energy follows the process laid out by Congress. Their letter argues that building a West Coast reserve this fiscal year would “defy the law” and bypass congressional authority. Process matters. But so does reality. And the reality is that California is an energy island, its families and employers remain dependent on petroleum, and its own elected officials keep attacking the very in-state production that could make the state more secure.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not an abstraction. Federal data cited by CNN showed the national reserve recently dropped to 340.3 million barrels, its lowest level since 1983, after another major weekly drawdown. The Department of Energy has also said it is executing emergency exchanges tied to a broader 172-million-barrel release from the SPR in response to global supply disruptions. In plain English: the cupboard is being opened because the world is still dangerous, oil still matters, and wish-casting is not a supply chain.

That is exactly why California should be leading the argument for a real West Coast reserve, not trying to bury it in process objections. The California Energy Commission reports that in 2025, only 22.9 percent of the crude oil supplied to California refineries came from California, while 61.1 percent came from foreign sources. The state’s top foreign crude suppliers included Brazil, Iraq, Guyana, Canada, Ecuador, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and the United Arab Emirates. A state that talks endlessly about climate leadership should not be comfortable outsourcing its petroleum supply to tankers crossing oceans from countries that do not follow California’s labor, environmental, safety, or human-rights standards.

CIPA’s position should be simple: if California is going to use oil, California should produce more of it here. That is the climate-compatible barrel. It is produced under California’s regulatory regime, for California refineries, by California workers, with California accountability. The alternative is not a magic solar-powered cargo bike delivering jet fuel to LAX. The alternative is more foreign crude, more marine transport, more geopolitical exposure, and more price volatility.

California’s own energy agencies admit the transition is not instantaneous. The California Energy Commission says Californians still consume about 36 million gallons of gasoline per day, that California’s refineries process about 1.5 million barrels per day of crude, and that 81 percent of gasoline consumed in the state in 2025 came from in-state refineries. The same CEC discussion acknowledges that unplanned refinery outages can raise prices until imports arrive to replace lost supply. That is not a stable strategy. That is a very expensive game of tanker roulette.

Senator Padilla’s office has tried to frame the West Coast reserve proposal as a corrupt favor to Sable Offshore. If he wants oversight, he should conduct oversight. If Congress must approve funding, Congress should approve funding. But oversight should not become another excuse to oppose every practical step that strengthens California’s fuel reliability. But the SPR proposal benefits onshore oil production, not offshore.  Sable already is in contract to a Southern California refinery.  It is Kern County based oil production that is suffering from a huge differential in the price paid to it rather than importing foreign oil.

There is also a worker story here that Sacramento and Washington too often flatten into a cartoon. California oil and gas is not just executives and press releases. It is welders, truck drivers, operators, roustabouts, mechanics, engineers, geologists, refinery workers, and small business owners. A major LAEDC/WSPA analysis found California’s oil and gas workforce is racially and ethnically diverse, with Hispanic or Latino workers accounting for nearly 30 percent of the workforce, Asian workers 10.8 percent, and Black workers 6 percent in one statewide industry profile. In Kern County, the UC Merced Community and Labor Center reported that oil and gas workers earn among the highest wages of any local industry, with oil and gas extraction and related industries employing 13,427 workers and supporting blue-collar jobs that often pay significantly more than comparable work outside the industry.

California already has a path to produce more responsibly. SB 237 declared the Kern County environmental review and revised ordinance sufficient for CEQA compliance for covered oil and gas production operations beginning January 1, 2026, with specific exceptions, and CalGEM has issued operator guidance implementing that framework.

The policy question is no longer whether California uses oil. It does. The question is whether California will produce the oil it still needs under its own high standards, or whether it will keep importing more of it from across the globe while congratulating itself for the paperwork.

CIPA should be clear: California needs a United States Senator who supports energy security, domestic production, working families in the oil patch, and a practical climate transition. Senator Padilla’s latest move goes the other way. It is the wrong fight, at the wrong time, for a state that cannot afford to keep outsourcing the fuel that still moves its people, goods, emergency services, farms, military installations, and economy.