New CEI Video Underscores the Obvious: California Can Produce Cleaner-Burning Gasoline Here at Home

A new video from Californians for Energy Independence makes a point Sacramento keeps trying to dodge: California still depends on gasoline, California gasoline is cleaner-burning under some of the toughest fuel standards in the country, and the state would be far better served producing and refining more of that fuel here at home rather than growing more dependent on outside suppliers. CARB states that all gasoline sold in California must meet its cleaner-burning requirements, which have been in place since 1996, and says that fuel cuts smog-forming emissions from motor vehicles by 15 percent and reduces exposure to motor vehicle toxics by about 40 percent.

The timing of the video is no accident. Extracting Fact notes that California has lost nearly a third of its refining capacity in just six years, even as gasoline consumption is falling by less than one percent per year. That is a dangerous combination in any market, but especially in California, where Valero announced last year that its Benicia refinery could idle, restructure, or cease refining operations by the end of April 2026. Less in-state refining capacity, paired with stubbornly durable demand, is a recipe for tighter supply, greater volatility, and higher costs for working families and employers alike.

And California is not some ordinary fuel market that can casually backfill lost supply. The California Energy Commission has described the state as essentially a fuel island. There are no gasoline import pipelines from adjacent states, Northern and Southern California are not connected by a gasoline pipeline, and significant replacement volumes typically arrive only by ship. The Commission also notes that California’s unique CARBOB specification differs from every other state, that out-of-state production is limited to only a few refineries, and that overseas cargos can take three to six weeks to arrive. In plain English: when California squeezes its own production and refining system, it is not creating resilience. It is creating exposure.

That is why the CEI video lands so cleanly. Californians are going to use gasoline for years to come. The real question is whether that gasoline will be produced under California’s own strict environmental rules, with California jobs, California tax revenue, and California operational control, or whether state leaders will continue forcing the market toward imports and pretending that dependence is somehow a climate strategy. It is not. It is an affordability problem, a reliability problem, and increasingly a credibility problem.