Published May 11, 2026, in America Out Loud NEWS
https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-california-refinery-crisis-is-a-national-security-risk-for-america
Ronald Stein,
California is the 4th largest economy in the world and an “ENERGY ISLAND that is isolated from the other 49 States by the Sierra Mountains. There are no pipelines over those majestic mountains to connect the State to the rest of the country. Thus, California’s in-State refineries have been producing ALL the transportation fuels demanded on the California “Energy Island.”
- Bunker fuel, about 1 million barrels ANNUALLY for the ships servicing three of the busiest Ports in America, located in California.
- Port of Los Angeles had more than 1,800 vessel arrivals in 2024, which includes cruise and merchant ships.
- Port of Long Beach handled over 9.6 million container units in 2024, indicating a very high volume of ship activity, plus cruise ships.
- Port of Oakland, which also handles significant cargo volumes, contributes to the total number of cruise and merchant ships needing fuel.
- Jet fuel: California has over 2,400 airports and aviation facilities, including 9 international airports and 30 major military airports. The demand is 13 million gallons of aviation fuel DAILY. Several of those airports have direct pipelines to local refineries. In 2019, California consumed 16.7% of the national total of jet fuel, making it the largest consumer of jet fuel in America.
- Gasoline: For its 30 million vehicles, California is the second-largest consumer of motor gasoline among the 50 states, consuming 42 million gallons DAILY of gasoline, just behind Texas.
- Diesel: Diesel fuel is the second largest transportation fuel used in California, consuming 10 million gallons DAILY of diesel to support the state’s trucking of products from 3 of the busiest shipping ports in America.
California’s regulatory environment has created a refining capacity vacuum that global markets are rushing to fill, as regional policy decisions are creating international market opportunities and reshaping geopolitical energy dynamics.
Liquid transportation fuels remain essential for sectors that are difficult to electrify. Aviation still depends on jet fuel, global shipping requires bunker fuel, heavy transport, construction, and the petrochemical industry continues to rely on refined petroleum products. Diesel and jet fuel, and petrochemical feedstocks, will remain crucial for decades, even with reduced demand for gasoline from electric vehicles. If local refining capacity decreases in California while demand persists, markets will respond by seeking transportation fuels elsewhere.
It must be remembered that crude oil, by itself, is useless black tar unless you build a multi-billion-dollar refinery to break it down to produce various types of transportation fuels and oil derivatives that are the basis of virtually all the products in our materialistic world.
California’s environmental regulations and aging infrastructure are inadvertently triggering a worldwide refinery construction boom. There will be economic consequences for California consumers as domestic refining capacity shrinks and import dependence grows. The paradox of California’s environmental policies and California’s emissions reductions may be increasing the global carbon footprint through longer supply chains.
In the future, 181 new refinery units that are planned or announced in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will be providing transportation fuels to California’s 9 international airports, 30 major military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping ports.
These modern refineries in other countries are designed to operate on a massive scale, process multiple types of crude oil, and export transportation fuels worldwide. Tanker transport allows refined transportation fuels to reach major consumption centers, including ports such as the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach, and the Port of Oakland.
As California’s refining capacity continues to decline, the California transportation fuel demands for its shipping ports, airports, cars, and trucks are among the highest in the nation and will be increasingly imported from refineries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
California, the 4th-largest economy in the world, with growing dependence on transportation fuels produced at foreign refineries from refined crude oil, will pose a national security risk to the entire country.
California has closed 2 refineries, and more closures are on the way as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is tightening up the regulations on emissions that may drive the remaining 6 refineries in the State to EXIT to more business-friendly States.
The 4th largest economy in the world NEEDS new refineries to process crude oil, to be built IN CALIFORNIA.
Energy “REALITY” tells us that we need refineries to convert that useless black tar into usable transportation fuels and products:
- Planes, ships, trucks, and cars do not run on raw crude oil; they run on transportation fuels manufactured FROM crude oil by multi-billion-dollar refineries.
- With no pipelines over the Sierra Mountain, the new refinery in Brownsville, Texas, will be useless to the California Energy Island that demands in-state refineries to provide transportation fuels for 30 major military locations, 9 international airports, 3 of the busiest ports in America, and fuels for the trucks that transport imported products to the rest of America.
- Wind turbines and solar panels ONLY generate electricity, but CANNOT make any of the more than 6,000 products that are based on the oil derivatives manufactured out of raw crude oil, nor can wind and solar make any transportation fuels for the military, airports, merchant ships, automobiles, and trucks.
- The world is not dependent on raw natural fossil fuels, but has become dependent on the products and transportation fuels MADE FROM oil, the same products and transportation fuels that Wind and Solar CANNOT make!
- The world needs MORE REFINERIES to process that useless black tar into usable transportation fuels and products for life as we know it.
Collectively, the closure of the Phillips refinery in Southern California and the Valero refinery in Northern California provided about 17% of the state’s crude oil processing capacity to provide transportation fuels demanded in California. Thus, transportation fuel shortages are imminent for California, and it will be importing those transportation fuels from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The supply chain of fuels and products refined from raw crude oil will face severe imbalances, most likely leading to higher costs and shortages for future generations.
With 99.5% of the 8 billion people on this planet Earth living outside the borders of California, CARB is solidifying California’s 4th largest economy in the world as a national security risk for America, as the State will be importing transportation fuels from foreign-based refineries to run its 30 military airports and 9 international airports.
Be sure to watch and listen to the Epoch Times interview from April 4, 2026:
- The California Refinery Crisis: This author, Ronald Stein,addresses questions from the Chief Editor of The Epoch Times and TV Host of California Insider, Siyamak Khorrami.
Please share this information with teachers, students, and friends to encourage Energy Literacy conversations at the family dinner table.
Spend the $’s to do it properly per CARB. It can be done. If additional refining capacity. Is really a strategic necessity spend defense $s for the need. We do this for other “strategic” requirements. Cal has unique air pollution problems and CARB is not only the best at minimizing them, it is also the states right to do so.
There is no satisfying CARB or California in general until the voters wake up and stop voting for Eco-Nazi Democrats.
The Eco-Nazi Democrats are hell-bent on pushing fossil fuel companies out in order to “transition” to “renewables,” which of course WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Who would invest money in a state determined to drive them out of business?! And NO, “the government” aka TAXPAYERS should not have to bail Commiefornia out of the mess THEY CREATED.
So, apolitical diatribe sidestepping the actual California air pollution challenges. Brain frozen responseslike these are what perpetuates the paid up WUWT posts that seek environmental, safety, health Ben Dovers under the guises of [flll in the blank].
That the eco-Nazis don’t give a flying flip about the environment has been evident for a generation or more.
All they care about is promoting communism and shutting down capitalism.
There are valid points made, such as the military can build and operate refineries to service its needs.
There are arguable points made, such as CARB is the best approach.
There is one valid point that has two sides. States rights, the other being national security, the other being the impact on the local populations.
There is no control knob.
Gotta love the irony of today’s neo-Confederates selectively invoking ‘states rights’ to nullify Federal regulations whenever these run counter to the Left’s agenda.
CA could secede, of course, but that will never happen because it would only set back the Left’s national agenda, while doing absolutely nothing to ameliorate the condition of the millions of Californians who are currently disenfranchised at both the State and Federal level.
The people running California today couldn’t manage a lemonade stand much less microdirect a multi-billion dollar energy infrastructure.
The most realistic near‑term strategy for stabilizing California oil refining is to increase domestic crude supply from Alaska’s North Slope, including the congressionally authorized ANWR Coastal Plain, and move that oil through existing infrastructure: TAPS, Valdez shipping, and established West Coast refinery intake systems.
This approach is grounded in four realities:
Taken together, these points support a targeted federal–state strategy that strengthens domestic supply, improves refinery feedstock stability, and avoids the risks and delays associated with building new West Coast crude import systems.
CARB served it’s purpose. Now it is just a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, appointed exclusively by Democrats, that unilaterally do everything they can to hamstring the fossil fuel industry in California.
They are appointed by the California legislature who can, via plausible deniability, claim that it’s CARB that is causing the high cost of fossil fuel derivatives not them.
This is by design. Legislators appoint CARB members, CARB members regulate with impunity based on ideology, not science. Legislators get to claim they are “tackling climate change” but when things go economically bad for California citizens… it’s all CARB’s fault.
The only thing CARB does properly is make life harder for regular Californians. They don’t even care that their policies impact those that can afford it the least.
“Served it’s purpose”. The all purpose, fact free reason to jet your choice of regulatory entity. CARB is the reason for those before and after pictures of the LA basin taken 50 years apart
Needed now even more with the Project 2025 regressors at the table licking chops.
Nope, it was electronic fuel ignition. No more pig rich fuel going into carburetors.
And hundreds of other changes. As a California oilfield trasher they were everywhere and they worked. FYI, who taught you auto mechanics? Barbie? It’s fuel INJECTION…
SCAQMD had more to do with it, although there is certainly overlap of effort among several relevant authorities.
I’ve lived through those 50 years in one of the areas of the LA basin that had the worst smog. So yeah, I know what it’s like and I don’t need any pictures. The regulations they have in place are doing what they were intended to do. So it’s time for CARB to go away because they are now no longer serving the best interest of Californians.
You spend the money while filling out the paperwork to nowhere.
California is isolated from the other 49 States? Surely you mean other 47? Neither Alaska nor Hawaii have a land connection with the rest of the US states. Then too, while the route to Arizona or Nevada may be obstructed by mountains, what’s the problem with Oregon? Purely from a technical standpoint, is there anything, other than Democrats, preventing refinery construction in Oregon e.g. Port of Portland, with custom fuel then sold to California?
Portland consistently rejects port expansion capable of handling petroleum transport by railroad. It’s as bad as California. The entire Pacific coast is governed by complete idiots.
Hawaii, yes. Alaska, no. There is a land connection from Alaska to California, but there are also mountains.
I will at some point review the geography to determine for myself what mountains there are and how they could isolate California from Oregon and Washington.
FYI, both Oregon and Washington are on a Net Zero course to economic catastrophe.
Couple problems with Oregon.
If it wasn’t for democrats there wouldn’t be this oil refining crisis. democrats dominate the “Left” coast. A tap into Canada’s newly expanded TransMountain Pipeline system from Alberta to the British Columbia coast shipping crude to the Far East could be a cost effective immediate source but its off the table because of democrats; the States of Washington, Oregon, and California would never authorize construction. When gasoline at the pump hits $10/gallon here in Cali it won’t change anything, they’ll just blame Trump for it and say, “see we told you so, we need to build more wind and solar and go full electric for all land based transportation. The net result will be $10/gallon gasoline and $1.00/KWh electric power. I’m thinking i should have retired somewhere else (anywhere else).
Increasing pollution through fossil energy subsidies is not the solution to future energy needs. The trump regime has increased energy prices to reward billionaires who control fossil energy production. The sheep support fossil energy
I recommend reading another newspaper.
You are assuming he/she/it can read.
And another contestant in the Peak Lie Spewer competition toddles in.
Is this another of your drive-by posts where you make claims with no factual evidence to back them up?
And then run away so you don’t have to see the refutations of your fantasies.
are you going to cry?
Such an astute, insightful contribution to the discussion.
You bring to mind Pavlov’s dog.
Another kitten chasing catnip attached to a piece of yard.
How amusing how wrong he is.
FYI, there is no such thing as “fossil energy.” One cannot burn fossils.
Fossils are burned every day. Good god are deniers dense
“Formation: Usually occurs when an organism is buried quickly in sediment (mud, sand, silt) after death, preventing immediate decay. Over time, minerals replace the organic material, turning it into stone.”
Tell me you can burn stone?
Petroleum, natural gas, and coal are not fossils.
Good god the idiocy of the ignorant.
Right. Trade in your sails for solar panels or windmills. At least one solar powered airplane has flown–how’s that for a fleet? But a majority of CA voters know no more than Flesch here.
Sails 🤔. Wind power
Pavlov’s Dog appears again.
Don’t you have a bridge to haunt somewhere?
billionaires plural
Can you name two ?
Ineffective for increasing US production. It’s hosed no matter what. Now profits on proved. developed producing (PDP)? Certainly.
Eric has a one track mind, and it’s derailed.
What pollution from fossil fuel? That was taken care of back in the 70’s.
What fossil fuel subsidies? Only if you think not paying a 100% tax rate is a subsidy.
Everything Trump has done was done to enrich people who own the fossil fuel companies? Really? Do you have any other fantasies you want to let us know about?
Everything trump has done is to enrich the people of the USA…
Fossil fuel companies are part of the USA, so they also benefit.
The fact is that EVERYONE BENEFITS FROM THE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
Even little Eric is totally dependent on them every day of his tiny existence.
He is an avid supporter of the fossil fuel industry, as is the big oily blob. !
Fossil fuel is a common/social definition with origins back to Rockefeller trying through use of that expression to increase the sale price of petroleum.
Hydrocarbons and coal are not fossil. Fossils do not burn.
I foresee members of CARB being arrested for endangering the viability of the state by making it dependent on foreign, perhaps hostile, entities. In short: high treason. Hang’m high.
This is what you get in California when Radical Democrats run the show. They are completely detached from reality.
Common sense needs a revival in California. That requires not voting for crazy Democrats.
One town elected a Chinese Communist as mayor.
Reminds me that at least one town in Europe really elected a communist mayor, and they are quite happy with it.
Communism like socialism only works when there is a functioning capitalist economy to leech off of.
Like capitalists leech off the working class?
Free Markets give the working class jobs.
Actually, capitalists CREATE and SUPPORT the working class…
… and the working class are a major beneficiary of capitalism.
Mayors in Europe with communist affiliations:
Elke Kahr (Graz, Austria)
Philippe Rio (Grigny, France)
Mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo (Marinaleda, Spain)
unnamed, probably multiple (Le Martinet, France)
There is a difference between being a communist and being a Chinese Communist Agent. Of course you will disagree.
Enjoy the catnip.
Apparently, the town that elected her, Arcadia, CA is majority Chinese and Chinese is the language of the town.
It appears the Chinese are doing in California what the Somalis are doing in Minnesota, and forming little enclaves of foreign immigrants who vote their own into office, like Ilan Omar.
This is the action Gov DippityDoo can be arrested for. Then a thorough physical and chemical interrogation will root out his co-conspirators.
As most know, California is doomed. Conservatives flee in droves but the population still grows, replaced by immigrants. Voter ID is outlawed statewide, allowing clueless newcomers to keep the Marxist idiots in power. So two of our three most populous states are probably too far gone to recover. Better start publishing WUWT in Spanish.
Nah. Not Spanish. Just sever the internet links to California.
Photo ID will be on the California ballot this time around. Seventy to 80 percent of voters , including Democrats, think a voter should have to produce an ID in order to vote.
This vote will be interesting.
California’s income comes from importing goods.
When California makes money from importing goods, the trade deficit doesn’t matter.
California avoids harmful emissions from domestic manufacturing when goods are imported instead of domestically manufactured.
Harmful emissions?
Imported oil is more environmentally friendly than locally produced oil.
Not really; you have to pay for every mile it’s transported. And some place else gets the pollution. But how do you figure you make money on imports? That’s nonsense. Trade imbalance is defined by imports minus exports.
Why does California import oil if it’s not more environmentally friendly?
California’s must profit from importing goods, otherwise California wouldn’t do it.
CA imports oil because the people who live their are congenital idiots.
It might be more “environmentally friendly” in California.. but it still has to come from somewhere… and mostly by sea.
There is no environmental benefit, globally.
Your link clearly demonstrates California has a massive and negative trade imbalance.
If the refineries shut down, we won’t be importing oil. We’ll be importing finished product. Which, of course, will meet all the pollution requirements.
Link?
Importing costs money, it is no.t a source of revenue.
You only make money by selling stuff.
You’ve never worked in retail, have you.
Selling imported stuff makes more money than selling locally produced stuff because imported stuff is cheaper.
California imported $488 billion and exported $188 billion.
Do you not bother to read the links you post?
Basic ECON 101.
Reduce the price and the profit goes down.
Make less money on sales is reduced tax revenues.
Have reduced manufacturing resulting in reduced tax revenues.
So, how does one balance the books?
Californians living today were bequeathed infrastructure unimaginable to previous generations, and for a generation now they’ve been pissing it away because most of them haven’t a clue as to what makes their lives so carefree and easy.
Public education failed them.
Public education
failedgroomed them. Fixed that for you.During the Great Depression, the dust bowl, and World War II, Americans flocked to California. Many of our relatives moved there looking for jobs and new opportunities. Some stayed temporarily, but many sunk their roots deeply in California . The state offered a natural paradise with almost unlimited opportunities for growth and prosperity. Many of these people were traditional conservatives.
Merely 50 years later, by the 1990s California had already set a course for self-destruction. Through a complex array of social, environmental, tax and energy policies, the state has built a gallows and tied their own noose. I suspect it will take a major natural disaster, most likely “the big one” (earthquake), to restore sanity. Even local disasters, such as the Palisades fire, don’t appear to have woken them from their sleep walk to destruction.
Woken? They are woke. Awaken, perhaps?
California taught me a lot about Dem tactics of policy disaster and the cancerous spread to DC.
Other states are trying to outshine CA.
Virginia Democrats are ticked off because their state supreme court has ruled that the state did not follow the rules when they voted on a new districting map.
Their response to this outrage is to propose a new mandatory and immediate retirement age for supreme court justices, that just happens to be lower than the age of youngest current justice.
Once the court is empty, the governor gets to appoint all the replacements, then they intend to ask the court to re-hear the redistricting case.
Except that the new and mandatory and immediate retirement age for supreme court justices would have to be approved by the supreme court.
….. and people still vote for this party of nitwit scumbags.
Ain’t politics fun? Especially the tri-lateral balance of power.
“California is the 4th largest economy in the world”
I was very surprised when I read the above statement. How could California be the 4th largest economy in the world when its energy prices are so high because of its obsession with renewable energy?
It inherited the wealth and infrastructure while parasitic policy demise is based on targeted industries to distort over time. It’s a process superimposed over normal macroeconomic cycles and indicators. That also means it takes time to be more obvious to more people. But then Californians are too busy trying to pay for all the economic distortions to look up and take notice of their policy-driven plight.
Government and government spending is considered part of the economy.
They are either 7th or 4th, depending on who you ask.
This article understates the scope and nature of the problem. There are technical problems, there are existing laws, and there are people in government that are trying to make the west coast states dysfunctional. It is the people in government that are the biggest problem.
CARB is a problem, as is the CCC. The legislatures and executives in CA, OR and WA are simply full of low-intelligence ideologues that want to impede progress, raise taxes and spend money. This sort of nihilist psychopath is really common in government. Having been elected and served in office twice here Oregon, I dealt with lots of them. These people derive great pleasure from inflicting discomfort on the general populace while ignoring the actual business of government. Imagine a cross between the characters of George Orwell and the details in “The True Believer”… these are the people in government making policy. They will never be satisfied because their goal is not satisfaction, but rather the propagation of endless misery.
Oregon is in a worse state than California. We have no domestic oil supply or refining, exactly one oil port and voodoo-like determination not to have adequate petroleum processing capacity. Our gasoline/diesel tax is about $1 per gallon, and that revenue just vanishes into state offices. California does not have any spare port capacity and cannot send fuel to Oregon. The main supplier to Oregon, on the only pipeline that comes from WA to OR, is a California company that may shut down. What will OR do with a cut of 95% of petroleum distillates? Nobody in state government seems to care. Who needs air, train or boat travel? No more cars or trucks, and certainly no farming, forestry or fishing.
My proposal is for 2 new refineries in OR, and 2 natural gas ports, but there are not many state-wide politicians that want to even consider these ideas. Politicians prefer to plan for magic or miracles or something.
When the cell phones stop working and social media goes dead, then the torches and pitchforks will come out.
Sometimes you have to let the child burn their hand when they don’t take advice. California has changed from the 50’s & 60’s into the current douche bag slacker we all know so well. Energy is the same way. Preening cocksure liberals and progressives haughtily scorned flyover country and mocked culturally conservative values like marriage and work ethic. Now let them reap the whirlwind that they’ve created. I feel sorry for the people who are chained to California by family, work, and heritage. They’re the real unfortunate losers who are byproducts of ‘they who know better’. Sad, but sometimes you can only rebuild when complete devastation occurs. Such is the once golden state of California
Expedite the pipeline approval for the product pipeline by Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan to move product from the Texas panhandle down to El Paso and over to AZ. This will save AZ from California Dems and silent AZ Dems also.
California has become a serious problem. There is no justification for allowing it to become a critical problem. The time is near where the feds need to step in and clarify that California will not interfere with national defense installations period. With that in mind bids are open for refiners to open closed refineries and to produce fossil fuel products to national standards. The military will be first in line for their product and other federal agencies second. Since California has chosen to remove itself from the energy production business it is prohibited from taxing or charging any kind of fee for the production or sale of these products. If individual political areas within California would like to purchase this new fuel they are welcome to apply but the same tax and fees apply.
Nice article but one correction: California is connected to Arizona & Nevada by pipelines run by Kinder-Morgan. But they don’t carry petroleum, only refined products.
Neither Arizona or Nevada have oil refineries.
Here in AZ we get ~60% of our gasoline from California refineries via a pipeline running through Yuma to Tucson then up to Phoenix. The other 40% comes from Texas & New Mexico refineries (via El Paso & also goes to Tucson first).
Thus, whatever the California nutjobs do regarding gasoline & diesel, Arizona is affected.
Regular gas is running ~ $5/gal this week.
[See Resourceguy below about a proposed pipeline to Arizona]
Well perhaps you doomsday muppets could stop mandating EVs windmills and solar panels and drill baby drill and help getting the death cult from blocking international waters and the free flow of oil and gas-
Europe watches Beijing summit from the sidelines and fears the worst
You know… the death cult that wasn’t interested whatsoever in getting nukes but just threatened to use nukes on the Judeo Christian Enlightenment and is now threatening to cut off the internet beyond their shores as well. What part of that don’t you get numpties?