California’s Energy Island Is Out of Excuses

California’s fuel crisis did not arrive overnight, and it did not arrive by accident. It is the direct result of years of state policy decisions that discouraged in-state oil production, weakened California’s refining base, and pushed the state deeper into dependence on foreign crude oil and imported refined fuels.

In a new California Post/New York Post article, oil and energy leaders blasted Governor Gavin Newsom’s energy policies as California faces growing exposure to global crude oil disruptions, especially after the last Middle East tanker shipment tied to the Strait of Hormuz situation reached California. The article prominently quoted California Independent Petroleum Association CEO Rock Zierman, who put the matter plainly: “This is the consequence of shutting down in-state production in favor of foreign imports.”

That sentence should be printed, framed, and hung inside every energy agency conference room in Sacramento.

California’s problem is not that it lacks oil. California’s problem is that it made a deliberate policy choice beginning in 2019 to suppress in-state production, delay or deny permits, restrict well stimulation, discourage investment, and make long-term oil and gas operations in California legally, politically, and financially uncertain.

In November 2019, the Administration announced a moratorium on certain high-pressure extraction permits and placed well stimulation permitting under heightened review. The state’s own announcement confirmed that CalGEM’s process for approving well stimulation permits had been under review since mid-July 2019, with additional audits and restrictions imposed on permitting processes.

Then, in April 2021, Governor Newsom directed CalGEM to begin rulemaking to halt the issuance of new hydraulic fracturing permits by 2024, declaring that California needed to “move beyond oil.” That was not an energy policy. That was a press release with a detonator attached.

The predictable result has been a collapse in local production and an escalating dependence on imported crude oil and imported refined fuels. According to the California Energy Commission, California-sourced crude supplied to in-state refineries fell from 183.2 million barrels in 2019 to 110.7 million barrels in 2025. That is a roughly 40 percent decline in California crude volumes over the Newsom era. Meanwhile, foreign crude supplied 61.1 percent of California refinery supply in 2025.

That is the real story.

Sacramento’s political class told Californians that shutting down local production would somehow make California cleaner, safer, and more secure. Instead, California is importing more crude by tanker from foreign nations and more finished gasoline from outside the state. The California Energy Commission has acknowledged that California currently imports more than 75 percent of its crude oil for in-state refineries and roughly 10 to 20 percent of its gasoline from out-of-state and foreign sources, with gasoline imports projected to rise to 25 to 35 percent of statewide demand by summer 2026, and up to 50 percent in Northern California.

Imported gasoline and blending components already accounted for 19 percent of California supply in 2025. Reuters has also reported that California fuel imports hit a four-year high in 2025 amid refinery outages and declining in-state refining capacity.

This is what happens when a state decides to wage war on its own energy infrastructure while pretending the global market will always bail it out.

California has no crude oil pipelines from the rest of the continental United States. It is an energy island. When Sacramento shuts down local production, the replacement barrel does not magically arrive from Bakersfield by bicycle. It comes by ship, often from countries with weaker environmental protections, weaker labor standards, weaker human rights standards, and much higher transportation emissions.

That means California’s policies do not eliminate oil demand. They outsource production. They outsource jobs. They outsource tax revenue. They outsource environmental responsibility. Then they import the product back at a higher price and call it climate leadership.

The refinery side is just as dangerous. Valero announced plans to shut its Benicia refinery by April 2026, citing California’s tough regulatory environment and high operating costs. Reuters reported that the closure represents approximately 9 percent of the state’s crude oil refining capacity and follows other major refinery shutdown decisions in California.

Once a refinery closes, it does not come back. These are billion-dollar, highly specialized, capital-intensive facilities. No rational investor is lining up to build new fossil fuel infrastructure in a state that treats fossil fuel infrastructure as a political enemy.

CIPA members understand the irony better than anyone. California produces oil under the strictest environmental, safety, labor, and regulatory standards in the world. If the state truly cared about emissions, accountability, spill prevention, and environmental stewardship, it would prefer California-produced barrels over foreign imports moved through long, vulnerable, waterborne supply chains.

Instead, California has chosen dependence.

The Newsom Administration is now trying to blame international events, President Trump, oil companies, refinery operators, or anyone else standing close enough to the blast radius. But the timeline is not complicated. Beginning in 2019, California restricted and discouraged in-state production. In 2021, the governor directed the state to phase out fracking permits. California production fell. Refinery economics deteriorated. Imports rose. Refined fuel imports rose. Prices rose. Supply risk rose.

That is not bad luck. That is cause and effect.

Rock Zierman’s quote in the California Post article captures the entire policy failure in one sentence. California shut down in-state production and chose foreign imports. Now California consumers, workers, refiners, producers, farmers, truckers, airlines, and families are being forced to live with the consequences.

The answer is not another investigation, another scapegoat, or another Sacramento blame-shifting exercise. The answer is to restore in-state production, keep refineries operating, protect crude oil pipelines, support responsible permitting in Kern County and other producing regions, and stop pretending California can regulate its way out of physical fuel demand.

California still needs oil. The only question is whether that oil will be produced here, under California’s world-class standards, by California workers, supporting California communities, or imported from halfway around the world at greater cost, greater risk, and greater hypocrisy.

Right now, Sacramento is choosing the latter. CIPA will continue fighting for the former.