Defending the Backbone of American Energy
- Dec 22, 2025
- 3 min read
California’s independent oil producers don’t stand alone, and they never have. This week, the California Independent Petroleum Association joined forces with the National Stripper Well Association (NSWA), the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA), and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) in a coordinated national effort to defend small, independent producers from crushing federal overreach. It’s a coalition built the old-fashioned way with shared values, shared facts, and shared consequences.
At the center of this effort are joint letters supported by state associations like CIPA and sent by NSWA, DEPA, and IPAA to the White House and to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, urging immediate suspension of the Bureau of Land Management’s 2024 federal bonding rules. Those rules would eliminate nationwide bonding and jack state bond requirements from $25,000 to $500,000, which is a twentyfold increase that would hit small operators like a blunt instrument. Nearly 21,000 independent producers nationwide would be affected, with thousands likely forced to shut down, taking jobs, tax revenue, and domestic energy supply with them.
Importantly, IPAA’s leadership ensured this issue was framed not as a niche concern, but as a national energy-security threat. As the national trade association representing America’s independent producers, IPAA’s participation reinforced what CIPA members know all too well: when small producers are regulated out of existence, oil production doesn’t disappear; it’s replaced by imports with higher emissions and higher prices.
The advocacy worked. In response to sustained pressure from DEPA, NSWA, IPAA, and dozens of supporting state associations, including CIPA, the Department of the Interior and BLM issued a final rule extending implementation of the bonding requirements by an additional year. That pause provides critical breathing room while the federal government completes its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking review and prevents immediate, irreversible harm to domestic production and rural economies.
For California, this national fight hits close to home. CIPA is a long-standing member of IPAA, and California’s producers are part of the same independent backbone that supplies energy across the country. As production in California continues to decline (not for geological reasons, but because of policy choices), the consequences become impossible to ignore. Less in-state production means more foreign oil arriving by tanker, higher emissions, higher costs, and less control. That’s not environmental progress; it’s policy malpractice.
CIPA CEO Rock Zierman, who serves on the board of directors of both DEPA and IPAA, plays a key role in ensuring California’s perspective is fully integrated into these national conversations, working in close coordination with IPAA, NSWA, and allied state associations. That alignment matters, because federal policy doesn’t stop at state lines, and neither does energy reality.
The takeaway is simple and timeless: protect independent producers and you protect production. Protect production and you protect jobs, communities, and energy security. California does not need less oil produced under the strictest environmental standards in the world; it needs more of it produced responsibly at home, not outsourced abroad.
CIPA will continue working shoulder-to-shoulder with IPAA, NSWA, DEPA, and national allies to push back against misguided federal policies and to advance common-sense solutions that keep California and the nation powered, employed, and grounded in reality. The lights don’t stay on by accident, and neither does American energy leadership.
The letters and press release can be found below: