I Told You So: California Oil is the Climate Answer Sacramento Keeps Trying to Kill

California has spent years pretending that shutting down in-state oil production is a climate policy. A new emissions comparison by Joseph B. Silvi and Dr. James W. Rector of UC Berkeley makes the opposite point with brutal clarity: replacing California crude with foreign crude is not climate virtue. It is climate outsourcing, pollution laundering, and energy policy malpractice wearing a green façade.

The study compares California crude oil production against the five largest foreign sources of crude imported into California: Iraq, Brazil, Guyana, Ecuador, and Canada. Those five countries supplied more than 258 million barrels of crude to California in 2024, while California now obtains roughly 64 percent of its oil from foreign sources because in-state production has been driven down by state policy, intentional permitting delays, and regulatory hostility from the Legislature and the current administration.

The conclusion should stop Sacramento in its tracks: the lowest carbon intensity oil available to California is oil produced in California. Not imported oil. Not crude shipped across oceans. Not barrels produced under weaker environmental controls and delivered by risky supertankers. The study also finds that California heavy oil produced with modern thermal enhanced oil recovery techniques, lower steam-oil ratios, prudent reservoir management, and potential solar energy integration can achieve carbon intensity scores comparable to some of the lowest-carbon foreign imports.

That is the part policymakers do not want to admit. California does not eliminate oil demand by killing California production. It simply imports more oil from somewhere else. And compared to California’s regulatory oversight of in-state oil production, “somewhere else” means countries with little or no environmental controls, massive methane flaring and venting, more tanker traffic, more pollution, more geopolitical compromise, and no accountability whatsoever. That is not climate leadership. That is exporting the mess and pretending the spreadsheet got cleaner.

The Iraq comparison is especially damning. The study notes that Iraqi oil carries the highest carbon intensity score among the evaluated crude sources, in large part because CARB’s crude emissions accounting does not fully capture the impact of flared and vented gases. The authors therefore relied on satellite data from the World Bank Group and analysis from Columbia University to better estimate Iraqi crude’s real-world carbon intensity. The result is a hard slap from reality: California has been importing crude from a country where massive gas flaring and venting remain part of the production profile.

The study states that Iraq flared 18.2 billion cubic meters, or 643 billion cubic feet, of gas in 2024. For perspective, that is more gas than California produces in five years. Iraq also directly vented 3.3 billion cubic meters, or 117 billion cubic feet, of partially or completely uncombusted gases in 2024. Those emissions include methane, a greenhouse gas far more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe.

So when California blocks a Kern County permit, stalls a maintenance project, strangles an asset transaction, or makes in-state production uneconomic, the practical result is not fewer barrels consumed. It is more reliance on imported barrels that carry higher climate, pollution, human rights, and environmental justice costs. That is not decarbonization. That is a shell game, and not even a particularly clever one.

The Ecuador example is no prettier. The study highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of importing heavy crude from the Amazon region, including oil development tied to rainforest disruption, displacement of native tribes, contaminated waterways, and California’s role as the largest buyer of crude from Ecuador’s Amazon production developments. The bumper sticker version is simple: California shuts down regulated production in California, then buys oil connected to ecological damage in the Amazon.

The study also points to the massive untapped opportunity California already has beneath its own feet. The ten largest oil fields in the Los Angeles Basin contain up to 5.6 billion barrels of additional easily recoverable medium and light oil, including 1.6 billion barrels within the City of Los Angeles that do not require thermal enhanced oil recovery. The San Joaquin Valley’s nine largest oil fields contain up to 10 billion barrels of additional recoverable oil.

Even a partial redevelopment of California’s already discovered oil resources could materially reduce foreign imports. The study estimates that if just half of the recoverable resources from already discovered large fields were produced over 50 years, California could increase oil production to more than 500,000 barrels per day and replace roughly 250,000 barrels per day of foreign oil imports. California imported about 887,000 barrels per day from foreign sources in 2024.

That is exactly why CIPA has been pressing for the same practical energy policies for years and years; restore in-state production, keep California refineries open, preserve and reopen critical pipeline infrastructure, fix the policies that have frozen responsible asset transfers, create workable permitting pathways, and allow maintenance and production activity inside of Health Protection Zones (HPZs) that keeps California barrels flowing to California refineries. California’s energy island problem is real. Pretending imports are cleaner because they arrive from beyond the horizon is not serious climate policy. It is cargo cult environmentalism with tanker schedules.

The study’s pollution findings are equally important. California oil does not need to arrive by marine tanker. It can move by pipeline. The study notes that large marine vessels, including oil tankers, are currently the largest source of air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and may contribute to disproportionate respiratory impacts in portside communities. Tanker ships, not oil wells.

That point matters because California’s import dependence does not merely push emissions overseas. It brings pollution home through the ports. Foreign oil causes upstream impacts where it is produced, then adds tanker-related pollution when it arrives in California. Meanwhile, California producers operate under the most stringent environmental, air quality, methane, spill prevention, labor, and safety requirements in the world. The state’s policy answer has been to punish the regulated barrel and reward the imported barrel.

The right climate policy is not to kill California oil first and ask questions later. The right policy is to produce the cleanest available barrel, under the strictest available rules, as close as possible to the refineries and consumers who need crude oil to the tune of nearly 2 million barrels per day, still.

That means California should increase production of its lowest-carbon non-thermal resources, accelerate modern reservoir management, support technologies like solar steam and field electrification, preserve pipeline infrastructure, and stop forcing refiners to substitute foreign crude for local supply.

This is the central policy truth: California demand has not vanished. California refineries still need lots of crude oil. California families need massive amounts of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, lubricants, asphalt, chemicals, agricultural fuel, emergency fuel, and military-ready energy infrastructure. The choice is not between California oil and no oil. The choice is between California oil and filthy foreign oil.

On climate, pollution, environmental justice, energy security, worker safety, regulatory accountability, and basic common sense, California oil dominates but Sacramento politicians are too afraid of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to admit it.

CIPA has been right all along. The cleanest, safest, most accountable barrel for California is the barrel produced here, by Californians, under California’s rules, for California’s refineries and for California consumers. The state’s ridiculous war on in-state production is not climate mitigation. It is climate malpractice, and California families and businesses are paying the price, in more ways than one.

When California leaders blame “Trump’s War in Iran,” remember that California’s War on California Oil is the real reason the state’s gas prices are chronically high, and continue to squeeze California families struggling in the most expensive state in America to live in.

It’s time for policymakers in California to have enough guts to stand up and start listening to reason before it’s too late.