Essay by Eric Worrall
Don’t they realise $8 / gallon pump price in California could torpedo Newsom’s presidential ambitions?
Gavin Newsom warms to Big Oil in climate reversal
BY ALEXEI KOSEFF, ALEJANDRO LAZO AND MAYA C. MILLERAUGUST 18, 2025
…
For decades, the state has raced to end its reliance on fossil fuels and prioritize clean energy. Its relationship with oil companies became particularly contentious in the past two years, as Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators held two special sessions to crack down on alleged price gouging at the pump.
But now two of its last remaining fuel refineries are closing sooner than California expected, tossing a simmering emergency into officials’ laps. With a hotly debated forecast that $8-per-gallon gasoline might be on the horizon, there has been a remarkable shift at the state Capitol. Led by Newsom, who just last fall was lambasting oil companies for “screwing” consumers, California may soon let its black gold flow again.
…
Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders are now negotiating a plan with the industry to boost stagnating production in California’s oil-drilling hub of Kern County — and avert a nightmare scenario for a governor with national ambitions and a party that has promised to focus on affordability. …
…
Read more: https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/08/oil-compromise-california-legislature/
If you thought Californian state finances are crazy now, wait until oil companies tighten the screws on the Newsom administration, to claw back some of the profits lost to Newsom’s Net Zero policies.
California is learning the hard way, once you start playing favourites in the energy market, in the end everyone has their hand out demanding subsidies and special favours.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
He’s worried about running out of hair lube.
Oil Producers aren’t Abandoning California… California has been Abandoning Oil Producers quietly forcing them out of state. In 2028 Vote…vote for no Californication of the nation…vote against the United States of California. Vote Republican!
Surely you want to vote for the fornication of the Cali Cartel instead?
I shall have to research that possibility…in depth.
When oil producers start to shaft him, he’s gonna need a lot of lube, and I ain’t talking for his hair
Insist on repealing all energy policies by the state since 1976?
Evidently, California’s population growth has been either stagnating or dropping even slightly largely because of higher living costs. These have been caused largely because of higher energy prices and various taxes often related to environmental initiatives. It was similar scenarios or the threat of them that helped undermine Harris and the Democrats last November, and unless Newsom adopts a more realistic energy/environmental platform, he’ll go down easily in 2028 if he gets that far. People don’t feel they should face higher taxes and overall living costs to help combat a climate crisis that never existed from the outset.
The Leftist greenies in the CA Democrat Party will scream bloody murder, in addition to all of the big-money NGOs. I’m not sure he can kiss enough Conservative asses by 2028. His big problem is there are no permanent Socialist alliances; they cut the throats of heretics.
California’s Citizen Population has dropped dramatically only to be replaced by undocumented (illegal) migrants to maintain head count for house seats
The correct term per the INS law is illegal alien.
👍 😉
Typo: INA (Immigration and Nationality Act).
Correct, but insensitive – not woke.
Harris undermined herself by opening her mouth.
There is that, but also Harris undermined herself by being herself.
Remember, people who want to lower your standard of living are not your friends.
While, skilled, educated, tax-paying, entrepreneurial people are leaving in droves, about 350,000/y, which is easily offset by
Those unvetted, illegal, often-voting aliens from all-over:
– the dregs of Third World countries, sent to Maine by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros/Biden-financed NGOs
– getting free housing, free food, a never-empty credit card, free phones, free healthcare, free education/job training and whatever other goodies they want.
.
They mainly suck from the government tit:
– have no skills, no training, no education, no modern industrial experience.
– will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs at 30% less than screwed-over Mainers.
– are often good at crime, murder, rape, drug and human trafficking, and driving vehicles into native merrymakers.
– the tens of millions of incompatible, subversive, walk-ins would rather undermine, instead of fight for traditional European and US values and culture.
.
Many millions of illegal aliens have to be shipped back where they came from, before they forever ruin the US, as they ruined Europe, France ,the UK, Ireland, Spain, etc.
Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to increase command/control by governments, and enable the moneyed elites to get richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people.
.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an absolutely essential ingredient for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to feed 8 billion people.
Californians deserve this misery. For more than 40 years, they have turned the largest state in the US into a communist gulag by voting for one party only. It’s been the longest one-party rule since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1979. It would not particularly bother me if all gasoline companies shut down all gasoline sales in the state after giving the locals due notice of the impending shutdown.
So, fine. Let them wallow in the filth of their gigantic homeless population, their surging unemployment, the uncontrolled infectious diseases, the rivers of sewage in their streets, their water shortages. They wanted this, voted for this, and now they are getting it good and hard.
Was it H.L. Mencken that (approximately) said people vote for what they want and they get it good and hard?
The “Party” gerrymandered the districts into heavy Dem favor in 2020. Now we have Gerry Mander as governor looking to overturn the State Constitution and gerrymander districts further. The times may come for Republicans to abandon deep blue cities and relocate, in an organized fashion, to pale blue rural districts making them bright red.
Gerrymandering is certainly one factor, but the utter fecklessness of the Republican party in California is a bigger factor.
When Democrats outnumber Republicans in a state they tend to maintain control
46% Democrat
23% Republican
21% Independent (no affiliation)
27% immigrants (registered and unregistered) (likely registered democrats during 2020 election cycle)
The problem with your assertion is that the San Joaquin valley, as one example, is chock full of illegal immigrants yet is staunchly red.
So my view is that the illegal immigrants are used to drive up California’s electoral count, but the actual voting outcomes is because of the big cities and their PMC (professional/managerial class) populations.
Nor is your assertion about registrations necessarily controlling. Voter turnout in California is not great, but regardless the PMC types have very high turnout and vote far, far more than working class or other demographics of voters.
Put in other terms: Democrats in general and in California in particular, are supported rabidly by a relatively small group.
The state has one of the largest homeless populations in the US with many of them excessively alcohol- and/or drug-dependent. As a result, there’s no shortage of career deadbeats among them which, along with the high living costs and taxes, makes the state hardly an attraction for entrepreneurial newcomers whose current choices are Texas and a number of southeastern states where conservative values still prevail.
Its not even 1% of the state population who are homeless. Its 190,000 estimated. so its 0.47%
I just read that it’s 24% of the nation’s homeless.
JZ – both are correct.
As if California homeless are the only problem Newsom has mismanaged. But lets hear all about how Reagan caused the problem by closing the mental hospitals 50 years ago.
You want to get rid of homelessness? Get rid of the freely available smuggled opiates and watch them leave quickly.
an attraction for entrepreneurial newcomers
Not even newcomers. While it’s trying to rebuild the brand, Bed Bath & Beyond has announced it won’t build any new stores in CA due to the hostile business environment.
Fall of USSR in 1979?
Yeah, um…no.
Also you forgot about Ahnood.
It’s just as bad in Wokeachusetts- in terms of being a one party state. I believe the state legislature is 95% Dem.
Sorry, but you clearly don’t know anything about California.
For your education: Most of California, by land area, is actually Red/Conservative. It is the metropolitan areas of SF, LA and San Diego that overwhelm the rest of the state.
California is a larger version of New York politics.
Sorry not sorry: California deserves what it voted for, much like all the other blue states like New York. FAFO.
Not sure how boosting production is going to help increase refinery capacity. Is this Democrat logic or am I missing something?
It won’t do jack to refinery capacity but it could eliminate dependence on foreign oil. Both need to happen simultaneously to place CA in a better place.
Are those closed refineries dismantled? If so, rebuilding them should years, right?
They don’t need to be dismantled, just skimping on maintenance for a few years will render them unsafe to use.
It takes say 10 years to build a refinery plus 5 years to get permits. Then how many law suits will be brought?
Let him squirm. It’ll be a sight to behold.
Newsom won’t squirm. He and all the Dems will blame the evil profit oriented oil companies. And they will be supported by what passes for news outlets in this state.
It’s silly and performative on the Governor’s part. He knows that California is Hubberting* down the drain w.r.t. oil and gas production. For most of the usual reasons that every extractive industry does, sooner or later. And not even with economic shale potential to stretch it out.
He needs to hammer down on those who are now bailing, and/or will soon on their – freely assumed – asset retirement obligations. Onshore and off. State, and federal.
Yes, gas does and will continue to cost more, when you don’t want a carcinogenic corridor to make it with. It’s another cost of living Heaven adjacent.
Or maybe Kevin McCarthy would pimp such development in his Kern County comfort zone. They are poorer than Mississippi there, have some of the worst air in our land, and have Winter’s Bone levels of meth mouth. Maybe good for some quick cash, and you’re not physically able to make it much worse….
My ratio of Debbie Downers to data based rebuts is “the likes have never been seen”.
Too much incoherent gibberish to unpack !!
Rebutting you is … kinda like it sounds and it is not satisfying.
What data? All you did was make gratuitous assertions. Such things can be gratuitously ignored.
And I do, on a nearly daily basis!
What you do not know about energy and Hubert could fill a book. There is no Energy Shortage… https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
Dozens of facts, refute any two of them.
From your link –
That’s my thought as well – that if nothing changes, the world 200 years from now will look more like the world from 200 years in the past than what it does now. The article goes on to talk about coal to liquids.
The trouble with relying on coal as a liquid fuel replacement is
So while we may have 1000+ years of coal left at current consumption rates, those rates are only going to go up. For example, Australia has +/-150Gt of coal reserves, and if it were only using that for domestic consumption it would last them 1200+ years. However, they’re exporting 420M tons of their 520M ton production, most of it to China, so at current rates they’ll have run out in +/-280 years. If they continue increasing the amount they’re exporting, it’ll run out sooner.
If we have to replace all liquid fossil fuels with coal to liquids, I don’t think coal reserves will last much beyond 200 years either.
The article did mention two aspects of what I think is the only realistic solution to this issue, and those are thermal depolymerisation and nuclear power. If someone comes up with a power plant design that combines those two, where the heat from the fission reaction is used to turn old plastics and organic waste into synthetic crude, that should keep the lights on for at least the next thousand years…
The IEA say Australia has almost 50% of the world’s coal mining for export projects underway (46 out of 95 such projects in 13 countries).
Most people have seen your BS many times before and have grown tired of refuting it, just to be ignored.
Gas costs more in CA because of…
Limited internal oil supply
Foreign oil supply dependence
Shipping requirements for the foreign oil supply
Limited production facilities in state
Special formulation
Limited external production that can produce CA formulated supply
High State Taxes per gallon
High state demand
Don’t argue any of your points. What would you change?
The politicians, they made the mess 🙂
All of it.
Oil pipeline across the Rockies to allow for better domestic supply for starters.
Or from SE California (LA basin) to Texas
Oil is already piped from Texas and Oklahoma.
Plus a proposed mostly conversion of a natural gas pipeline to oil from the Midland basin 1000 miles to LA was shelved because the suppliers didnt want to sign up
But California mostly gets its crude from North Slope Alaska by sea
California produces 325,000bbl A day. California gets 80,000bbl from Alaska but imports more than 1,000,000bbl A day from Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Colombia per WIKI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_oil_and_gas_industry
We can have all the oil anyone wants to ship us. Not useful without refineries.
All of his points are both true and self evident?
If you disagree with any of his points, why don’t you argue against them.
Poorly stated, but a valid question.
Had you started with “I” perhaps the responses would have been different.
The fact that we use a unique formulation which refineries outside the state are uninterested in making sort of requires us to have refinery capacity to meet the demand. For all his public statements, I suspect that Newsom is pleased that refinery closures support the Net Zero goals.
Don’t forget Democrats greed, otherwise known as ‘taxes’!
You trust Wiki?
bwahahahaha
carcinogenic corridor
Wow.
And once again, Bob deliberately mistakes regulatory strangulation as proof that we are FINALLY running out of oil.
One of these days Bob will be right, but it won’t be in this century and probably not the next either.
I hope the collapse occurs sooner rather than later to prevent Newsom from running for president.
I’m surprised that the illegal immigrant Indian that came through Mexico but issued a commercial drivers license issue from California and killed 3 in Florida hasn’t topped the news.
The $15 Billion spent over the last 16 years on the high speed rail has been wasted. For that price they could have opened a triple reactor nuclear plant.
Newsome could be easily upset just by bringing up his potential Californication of the Union
I hope they come to their senses without the pain. Even though this craziness was caused by too many Californians voting for stupid, there are still a lot of innocent people who don’t agree with extreme green policies will be caught in the mess.
I hope they do too. Doubtful, but we can still have hope.
CA has started it’s demise, having lost 1 electoral vote from the 2020 census and up to 5 more after the 2030 census.
Newsom keeps using the ‘CA is 4th largest economy in the world” – sure, ok. When CA has about 12% of the US population, it’s not too hard to do.
However when Tesla, Chevron, McKesson, Charles Schwab, CBRE, Hewlett Packard, Palantir, AECOM, FICO, SpaceX, Oracle, Realtor.com, X (Twitter), McAfee, Boingo, Lucas Oil, American Airlines, Kaiser Aluminum, Pabst and a whole bunch of others leave, they take their finances and employees with them.
I left after graduating college in 1993 (Go Cal Poly Pomona Broncos!) and haven’t wanted to go back. I can sit in traffic anywhere – why do it there?
After 145 years in CA, Chevron called it quits and moved it headquarters to Houston, TX.
Newsom keeps using the ‘CA is 4th largest economy in the world”
What, exactly, does that mean? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a good explanation.
He is comparing CA GDP vs. country GDPs.
Given how many numbers are fudged in recent times, one has to wonder what a valid audit would find.
Also, I believe that India claims to have the fourth largest economy
Even those companies that haven’t decided to move completely out of the state are more and more moving their headquarters out of state. Corporate management tend to be the highest paid employees. Their leaving represents a significant loss in tax revenue for the state,
American Airlines has been headquartered in Dallas – Fort Worth for several decades.
You are correct – had to look a little further to find that the 400 flight attendants based out of San Francisco were being relocated.
https://abc7news.com/post/american-airlines-relocating-sfo-flight-attendants-san-francisco-international-airport-relocated-outside-california/12231087/
Thanks Eric. Many of us retired folk would move if there was a place to which to move that wasn’t equally screwed up in some other way. Plus I don’t do winter.
I agree, Jim. The places where the weather AND the government is better, have very high living cost’s, as well. Presently stuck, here in Illinois, with it’s version of Newsom! There HAS to be a better place for retirees.
Actually, IMHO, the best case would be if the collapse happened during the campaign.
He will either then give up the campaign and everyone will watch how he (mis)handles disaster or will see him as a coward avoiding the sinking ship.
Or both!
He and his whole Party can go wade in the tar pits to try and dig some up. Just be sure and get videos of taking charge and leading the deplorable pack.
California does not have an energy problem. It has a government problem. Get the government out of the energy business and your energy problems will just go away. It’s that simple.
Applies to nations and the entire world.
Hard to believe Ronald Reagan was once governor of California
Yes; It was a different California then.
It was a BETTER California then. Much, much better.
Hard to believe, true, but he was likely the very BEST governor the state ever had. Since then, it has ALL been downhill, starting with Jerry Brown!
Oil producers need to stop supplying California until they repeal ALL of the insane energy laws.
That should do it! Would probably hit oil company share prices though…
Also, those insane formulations.
It is clear the politics of redistricting (ala gerrymandering) in California has less to do with Texas and much more to do with blue districts turning pink and red over the past 4-5 years.
We should widen the Andreas Fault with some suitable explosions and float the East part of California to China
All problems solved, including walk-ins and child-labor exploitation.
Except that the Pacific plate of San Andrea fault is moving north. So LA will eventually be a suburb of SF.. That would get most of the liberal crazies in one crappy place.!!
Wait a bit longer and it will be part of Seattle or Portland or…..
The San Andrea heads out to sea after passing San Fran.
The west part.
If it split, the West part would float off to China, not the East part. The East part is the entire rest of the USA.
California believes its’ own propaganda and continues down the rabbit hole.
Is there a special oil dance for that?
Several important points:
1) Nobody in California has ever voted for CARB policies ranging from the unique fuel blend to the multitudinous “zero carbon” car mandates to an ever increasing range of other products that CARB wants to regulate.
2) California has fossil fuel resources including both shale formations for fracking and offshore. But permitting is a weapon used to keep these activities suppressed. Before Newsome came into office, there were something like 3000 drilling permits a year. In his first year, there were 2400. I think last year, the number was in the dozens. And note that these permits are not just for new wells – they are for anything including redrilling tapped out wells for natural gas storage, for geothermal, etc etc.
3) California’s mandated fuel blend is catastrophic for another reason: refinery capacity. There are apparently only like 5 or 6 refineries in the whole state; 2 are shutting down in the next year. Furthermore California’s oil and liquid petro products pipeline systems are basically divided into 2 parts – Northern and Southern. After the Benicia Valero refinery shuts down, there will be exactly 1 refinery for North California: the Chevron refinery in Richmond. Well, that refinery sits right on top of the Hayward Fault. This fault historically kicks off every 140 years and the last one was in the 1860s.
And as bad as the refinery situation in California is – there are no gasoline or jet fuel producing refineries in Arizona, Oregon or Nevada either. Utah has refineries, so does Washington state but they are serving existing customers.
So interesting times, if the Hayward fault kicks off and take all, or even just part of the Chevron refinery down for any length of time. I think in general, supplies on hand are about 2 weeks worth.
They voted for the idiots who have CARB policies
Actually, “they” voted for the idiots who appoint the CARB members, and the legislators who gave CARB it’s authority.
CARB is not a board in the normal dozen or two, spoils system sense. There are board members who are appointed, but CARB is actually much more than that: It is a gigantic bureaucracy with a billion dollar plus budget and something like 2000 employees.
It ALL goes back to the states government. If you elect idiots, how can you expect brilliant service? You only get what you vote for, and in this case, everyone loses! Yet, HE thinks he would make a great POUS??? We dumped Biden for less!
I don’t agree with this at all.
Among other things, did you know that CARB was created by Ronald Reagan in 1967?
So you can hardly say that CARB was always a hotbed of liberal activism. It was created to address a real problem: air pollution/smog from cars.
What we have today is almost certainly an outcome of unelected bureaucrats seizing power through diktats – because CARB policies are not voted on.
CARB has a billion dollar plus budget and around 2000 employees.