California’s Man-Made Oil Crisis

While policymakers and pundits in Sacramento continue to chant “man-made climate change,” California is now living through a different, far more tangible catastrophe: the irony of a man-made oil crisis.

As refinery workers lose their livelihoods and consumers pay record-high fuel prices, the consequences of years of anti-energy policies are no longer theoretical. They are real, immediate, and entirely avoidable.

A Crisis by Design

A recent CalMatters report laid bare what California’s energy producers have warned about for years: refinery workers across the state are facing layoffs, early retirements, and dead-end retraining programs because the state’s climate agenda is dismantling its refining backbone.

Nearly 1,000 workers at Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery complex are expected to lose their jobs as the company winds down traditional refining operations. Similar stories are unfolding in Martinez, Richmond, and Bakersfield. These aren’t abstract statistics. They represent skilled Californians, many of whom have supported families and communities on middle-class wages earned through decades of technical expertise.

For generations, refineries have been the backbone of California’s industrial economy, transforming locally produced crude into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and countless petroleum-based products that keep the fifth-largest economy on earth running. But in a rush to “transition,” California’s policymakers have been dismantling that infrastructure piece by piece, not because the facilities failed, but because ideology demanded their extinction.

When Policy Becomes the Problem

California once operated more than 40 refineries; today, only a handful remain. Every lost refinery is another step toward higher prices, greater dependence on imports, and diminished energy security.

When the Chevron El Segundo refinery suffered a fire in its jet fuel unit earlier this year, supply disruptions were immediate. With only nine major refineries left, any incident, whether mechanical or regulatory, ripples through the entire system. The result: fewer gallons, higher costs, and more tankers heading to California’s ports from foreign countries.

It’s no mystery why this is happening. Regulations from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and other agencies have stacked new requirements year after year, from low-carbon fuel mandates and cap-and-trade costs to zero-emission fleet rules and climate disclosure reporting. Refiners have been backed into a corner, faced with a simple choice: convert, leave, or close.

The same policymakers who created this regulatory thicket are now lamenting refinery shutdowns as if they were natural disasters. They weren’t. They were policy choices.

The Ripple Effect for Producers

CIPA members know too well that upstream and downstream operations are inseparable. When refining capacity vanishes, demand for local crude falls with it, not because Californians stop driving, but because the state chooses to import foreign gasoline instead.

This year, California consumers are once again paying the nation’s highest fuel prices, even as the state’s reliance on foreign imports climbs. Tankers arrive daily carrying refined products made from Russian, Saudi, and Ecuadorian crude, energy that could have been produced and refined right here by California workers under the strictest environmental standards on earth.

That’s the bitter irony of the “climate leadership” narrative: California hasn’t reduced its appetite for petroleum. It has simply outsourced the production, refining, and emissions to other countries. Out of sight, out of mind, but not out of the atmosphere.

The Human Toll

Behind every refinery closure is a family facing an uncertain future. The CalMatters piece highlights workers who spent decades in plants that provided stable, well-paid careers. Retraining programs, often touted as a safety net, cannot replace a $150,000-per-year skilled trade job with a $55,000 desk position or a temporary construction gig.

Communities that have depended on refinery tax revenues, schools, fire departments, local businesses, are now bracing for economic freefall. For many workers, the state’s message is clear: your skills, your experience, and your livelihood no longer fit our vision of California’s future.

The Politics of Energy Scarcity

The result of this ideology is predictable: scarcity. And scarcity breeds volatility. Every refinery lost tightens the supply chain. Every regulation adds cost. Every foreign shipment increases exposure to global shocks.

This is the man-made oil crisis: a crisis created not by geology or technology, but by policy. California has some of the most advanced refineries, engineers, and environmental standards in the world, yet the state has chosen to cripple its own capacity in pursuit of symbolic climate goals.

Even the governor, once fond of railing against “greedy oil companies,” now faces the reality that his own climate ambitions are producing the very price spikes he condemns. But instead of reversing course, the state is doubling down with more disclosure mandates, more regulations, and more hostility toward the very industry that keeps California moving.

CIPA’s Call to Action

CIPA is sounding the alarm, because this pattern affects every corner of California’s energy landscape. Refinery closures, pipeline constraints, and permitting paralysis are not isolated issues, they are connected pieces of a single, deliberate strategy to eliminate fossil fuel production in California.

CIPA’s independent producers may not refine crude, but they depend on refineries to keep markets functioning and local energy flowing. A shrinking refining sector threatens to strand in-state production, forcing even more oil to be shipped from overseas for processing, an outcome that makes no economic, environmental, or moral sense.

“We’re witnessing the creation of a man-made oil crisis,” said CIPA CEO Rock Zierman. “It’s time for policymakers to recognize that reliable energy and climate progress are not mutually exclusive. California needs balance not bans.”

A Path Forward

CIPA continues to advocate for policies that restore balance to California’s energy future: permitting reforms, infrastructure investment, and recognition of the vital role domestic oil plays in economic and environmental stability.

The association will continue meeting with legislative leaders, state agencies, and allied industries to ensure that local production and refining remain viable and protected. CIPA also encourages members to share these stories with employees, local officials, and community partners, because the public deserves to know that California’s energy crisis is not an accident. It was designed.

California does not suffer from a shortage of energy; it suffers from a shortage of political will to use the energy it already has.