Audrey Streb
DCNF Energy Reporter
California Democrats are reportedly rushing to find a buyer for a refinery scheduled to shut down in 2026 as a potential gas crisis looms over the state, according to Reuters.
The California Energy Commission (CEC) is reportedly actively seeking buyers to stop the upcoming closure of the Valero refinery in Benicia, California, according to three people familiar with the matter that spoke to Reuters. Democrat officials are now reportedly scrambling to keep the refinery operating in California after enforcing stringent regulations that have helped prompt refineries to close across the state for years.
“CEC is engaging with market players to explore pathways for the continued operation of in-state refineries,” the agency told Reuters. (RELATED: Gas Crisis Looms Over California As Dems Continue To Impose Crippling Regs)
CEC did not specifically confirm that it is looking for a buyer to Reuters, but did say that it is working to ensure that the refinery stays open. Valero announced its Benicia, California, refinery closure in April, and Phillips 66 refinery is also scheduled to shut down by the end of 2025.
A spokesperson for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed the DCNF to Newsom’s recent comments about working with oil refiners and producers to help keep fuel supplies steady, as well as his April letter to CEC urging them to “redouble” efforts to cooperate with refiners.
Golden State residents already pay some of the highest prices at the pump across the U.S., though two major refineries scheduled for closure and strict regulations may spike gas costs to as high as $8 per gallon as soon as next year, according to one study from the University of Southern California.
Oil refineries have been closing in California for years, and the state hasn’t seen a new major refinery built in decades, according to the CEC. Programs like California’s “cap-and-trade” program combined with strict low-carbon fuel standards are contributing to regulatory pressures that are driving refineries out of the state, industry experts have previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Critics like Republican California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones also note that stringent regulations imposed by Democrats have pressured refineries to leave the state. The refinery closures, in tandem with more regulations going into effect, have led some California officials to worry about a potential gas crisis in the state.
CEC and Valero did respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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When it comes to energy production… You truly reap what you sow
In California, they sow weed. erm, weeds.
And reap A HIGH value
Title for a book on farming:
Read ’em and reap.
I live in California and like this.
— Jonathan Swift
Reason didn’t get them to this sad position, reason won’t get them out of it. But millions of pissed off screaming voters might just panic them into something stupid like the state buying the refineries and trying to run them with subsidies, or signing binding contracts to hold all those environmental controls in abeyance for 20 years. It’s going to be a glorious debacle.
Ha ha yeah, I thought $5.19 for 91 Octane today was a good deal. Must be a victim of brainwashing.
I work (allegedly) out of home now and if I feel like setting up another business, I’ll do it here in the East Bay, even though the most vibrant areas are across one of the bridges – South San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
I guess the good news is that Gavin can’t stop looking like an idiot no matter how much hair gel he slaps on. Could be good for 2028 and the Vance/Gabbard ticket (hopefully).
Stockholm syndrome?
Norway here at 7,76usd/gallon if I did my math right (20,70 Norwegian Oil Kronas/liter).
2025 and Norway still measures in Krona instead of Euro… what would Walter Hallstein think?
He might think that Norway is not a member of the EU and so would not use the Euro. That aligns them with their EU neighbours Denmark and Sweden who also use their own Krona currency.
Our regular price is less than half that here in Colorado. We have a lone refinery here in Commerce City.
$2.58 here in Austin
I’ve often thought of Vance as Vance48 but hadn’t given thought to potential running mates. Vance /Gabbard certainly has a Ring to it.🤔
Toilet bowls have rings. Just sayin’ . . .
So does Uranus! Just saying’ 😉
Yeah . . . and, wait for it! . . . an increase in the state’s income tax rate to, oh, about 25% total will perhaps provide just enough revenue to enable California to purchase and run said refineries.
The Laffer Curve still applies to income tax revenue. The State won’t acknowledge it but California is hemorrhaging wealth. Not just the high visibility Musk, In-N-Out exoduses but people like retiring civil service workers who take their generous pensions to other states thus depriving California of both their in state spending but also income taxes.
Exactly! Twelve years ago I retired from the State of California. My CalPERS pension and I relocated to Colorado.
The tax increase will go to fund education for blonde children. Existing revenue will buy refineries. I think fixing the root problem requires a time machine – let California enter the union as at least three separate states.
Out of curiosity i followed up on the origin of that quote since so many are incorrectly attributed. It appears to be correct, but the continuation of the quote is also very apt:
Very accurate for how ugly and vicious warmunists get whenever anyone dares disagree with them (think Michael Manniac).
Examples like this are why I moved to east Texas eight years ago. There are pockets of stupidity in Texas, but mostly run as a rational enterprise.
No; there are pockets of ignorance in Texas but lots of common sense.
If Ignorance is in the Pockets, Common Sense must be in the Jeans
I see what you did there! 🙂
Just for fun I asked Chat GPT to explain Bryan’s cute comment: it got it as well. [ We are doomed! Lol ]
What is going to be funny is going forward you can see organized crime will start smuggling fuel in to get around the cali tax … creating a whole new problem 🙂
organized crime, democrats – what’s the difference ??
Democrats appear rather Disorganized at the moment
RICO, baby! That’s R.I.C.O., as in Rudy Giuliani’s forte, back in the day …
To defeat The Chicago Way [Omerta] — its secret oaths & combinations, once they become deeply entrenched — requires special tools.
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless. And
And knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
— Samuel Johnson
Perhaps RICO will be the Democrat frontrunner for 2028?
That’s Uncle Rico to you, Buddy.
“Vote Pedro-for-President!”
Where’s Napoleon Dynamite when we need him most?
— RLW, living in my own private Idaho.
I recently saw a report on the TV that a lot gasoline is being smuggled into California and Arizona from Mexico. Some people hid containers of gas in cars and travel in to the US on short day trips and sell the gas in the black market.
Imagine that stupendous amount of a high quality illegal gasoline.
Local street corner in California: “Psst, hey kid. I got some sweet 91 octane for ya. Only $10 a gallon.”
Perhaps more people will relocate closer to the CA/OR border or CA/NV or CA/AZ borders then just cross state lines to fill up.
Will there be EV chargers at the border crossings?
Perhaps, but here in Arizona we get almost half of our gasoline from California.
So, we are directly affected by the nonsense to our west.
I might point out that so many Californians migrated to Arizona and vote like they are still back home that we now have a Purple state with Democrats holding all the top spots: 2 Federal Senators,our Governor and Attorney General.
Those people never did a causal analysis of why the left California.
They already have the manpower…. illegal aliens.
problem -> opportunity
Story tip.
UK increases guaranteed price and extends guarantee to 20 years.
Comical Mili is still promising NetZero will reduce energy bills?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8ynegwn4o.amp
“You disgust us, and we hate you and hope your industry dies:”
“Wait! Where are you going? We still need you. Come back!”
No problem, California will just follow the Yellow BRICS Road. Russia sell crude to China, China trans-ships it to India, where it is refined, and India ships it to California, where Kalifornians who voted for this whole smelly mess will gladly pay $10 per gallon, because, you know, Trump!
California taxes fossil fuel so heavily that gasoline taxes alone contributed $16 billion dollars in revenue last year. With 1.25 million EV’s registered and paying just $100 per year in road taxes, they contribute just $125 million in revenue even they represent 8% of all vehicles. This is just 10% the revenue that gas vehicles contribute.
i suspect this loss of revenue, which will grow over time, is a bigger factor in the state’s concern for drivers than the harm these prices impose on their citizens.
Which stands that EVs are being subsidized by ICVs gas taxes. Instead of $100 per year they should be paying $1,000 per year…perhaps even $2,000 since they’re heavier and cause more roadway wear and tear.
Road tax per pound? Does driver count? Will there be a cholesterol modifier?
This section: “ they [EVs] represent 8% of all vehicles. This is just 10% the revenue that gas vehicles contribute.”
If 8% of vehicles pa 10% of the revenue, then the 8% are better for the payee. Not saying it’s true, I’m saying that’s how it reads.
For clarity how about per vehicle. Effect of subsidies? Are road taxes actually spent on roads? I never liked the idea of saying a specific X tax is for a specific Y use. It encourages the majority to lord over subgroups one at a time until members of the majority (in general) realize they are almost all members of some subgroup or other (in specific), and therefore the majority has been lead into servitude to one of the blandest subgroups who appoint themselves to the UN and tax more subgroups.
No stir up the environistas to oppose any buyer, force complete shutdown! Screw California and its idiot leftist voters into the ground.
MASFA
Make Atlas Shrugged Fiction Again
I don’t need no stinkin’ gasoline, I have a hybrid! You said what? Uh oh, never mind.
Lets make Detroit fossil fuel free.
All the refineries in CA should say they’re thinking of leaving. That’ll really freak out the state government. 🙂
“A spokesperson for Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed the DCNF to Newsom’s recent comments about working with oil refiners and producers to help keep fuel supplies steady, as well as his April letter to CEC urging them to “redouble” efforts to cooperate with refiners.”
_________________________
Is there supposed to be some logic and reasoning to the practice of driving refiners into the ground with overregulation one hand and then offering cooperation and help with the other? If there is, I don’t see it.
“Those who the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
Yeah, the politicians get to lie twice. It’s the only thing they’re good at – so voters definitely getting value for money.
In so many ways Kalifornia is turning itself into a third world country. The Congo in Africa has valuable metal ores in the ground. The ores are dug out in guarded mines. But instead of refining the ores right there in the Congo, the ores are loaded onto guarded truck convoys and shipped south and then refined in other countries. The Congo then imports the finished metals it needs. The same thing is going to happen in Kalifornia. The Peoples Republic of Kalifornia has a lot of oil in the ground. But you can’t operate refineries there. So Kalifornia will export the oil it drills and will import gasoline. Just like a third world country it can export raw materials, but like a third world country it can’t manufacture finished products. Isn’t it wonderful that the Progressives in Kalifornia are getting just what they’ve always wanted – a one party socialistic third world country!!!
‘Isn’t it wonderful that the Progressives in Kalifornia are getting just what they’ve always wanted – a one party socialistic third world country!!!’
The Left in CA has for years had the political muscle to secede from the US and inflict the entire Marxist pant load of policies on its citizens. It won’t, of course, because it knows CA would rapidly lose its entire population of productive citizens, while becoming an irresistible magnet for every deadbeat in the US and beyond. The Left’s optimal strategy has always been to wait until it can wield a CA level of power nationally, at which time the trap will be sprung with no chance of escape. Be forewarned.
How did secession work out for that other Democrat, Jefferson Davis?
My point, Tom, was that even a uni-party state like CA would first have to secede in order to effect a Marxist agenda, e.g. to confiscate firearms, ban political opposition, etc. Otherwise it would run afoul of a Federal judiciary that at least pretends to care about the Constitution.
For the reasons I mentioned above, secession would not only be detrimental to the Left’s cause, but might actually be advantageous for the rest of us. Ever consider, for example, what CA’s US Congressional contingent might look like after the relative handful of counties that are the base of the CA Left’s power run off to form their own People’s Republic of Dystopia?
My point was that secession would
give the Federal government a rationale to
”clean up” the state.
I left the Democratic People’s Republic in 2005, and I wonder if I am still “voting” there.
‘I left the Democratic People’s Republic in 2005, and I wonder if I am still “voting” there.’
Possibly. Any way to check if you’re still on the rolls?
Looks like the only remaining option is the on the socialists wanted from the beginning. For the state to take over the running of the refineries.
That worked out well for Venezuela, didn’t it?
Yep, probably as well as socialist-run grocery stores in NYC – and they’re going to vote for it, I bet. you.
PS I don’t know who the they is. No idea, but I know they ain’t too smart.
Surely a California consortium would invest in closing this refinery down to help combat Climate Change.
Why the panic? This is success! Wasn’t the whole point of the Progressive agenda over the last 30 years to chase those evil, greedy refiners out of business? They are now so close to their goal. Voters in CA should be happy and proud to set an example for the carbon-free future.
This has been the socialists plan all along. Use regulations and taxes to drive private enterprise out of business, then use that as an excuse for the state to take over,
use that as an excuse for the state to take over,
Grocery stores next?
In addition to driving refineries out of business, the state has also been refusing to allow pipelines to be built.
On top of that, they are passing regulations that are making trucks more expensive and less efficient.
So who will “buy” it? Rosneft?
My guess is ‘no one’ given the potential environmental liability. It will become a tank farm and/or a bio-fuel blending facility.
No one has spoken the quiet part out loud. The Benicia plant supplies aviation fuel to three international airports and two military bases. Via pipeline.
If Benicia shuts down (it won’t) the pollution from tanker trucks across the area will eclipse any potential emissions from the refinery.
My hope is that all the refiners in California extract maximum political benefit from this debacle.
Its not a program. It’s a religious crusade designed to “Save The World”.
…. and, even though the world doesn’t need saving, the “big guy” grifters will take their 10% for their fabulous organizational skills.
California probably wants to own the refinery