Gas prices, Sacramento, CA April 3, 2025. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
California’s Higher Gas Prices Are a Policy Choice, Not an Accident
California once operated more than 40 refineries… only nine remain… two more closures are already underway
By Hector Barajas, January 7, 2026 2:55 am
Before the end of the year, the California Independent Petroleum Association sent a blunt message to the California Energy Commission: California’s oil industry is approaching a breaking point, and state inaction risks higher gas prices, supply disruptions, and deeper economic harm for working families and businesses.
The letter urges immediate intervention to prevent the dismantling of the Valero Benicia Refinery and the collapse of the San Pablo Bay Pipeline, the last pipeline carrying Kern County crude to Northern California refineries. According to CIPA, losing either would destabilize the system.
California once operated more than 40 refineries. Today, only nine remain. Two more closures are already underway. Refinery capacity has fallen sharply, even as Californians still consume roughly 1.8 million barrels of oil per day. Californians use more oil today than ten years ago.
Electric vehicle adoption has not erased California’s oil demand. It has merely shifted the conversation. Gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and more than 6,000 petroleum-based products, embedded in nearly every sector of the economy, remain essential.
The Valero Benicia facility is not an abstract asset. It produces California-specific fuels that cannot be easily replaced by imports. Once the oil refinery is dismantled, it will be nearly impossible to restart.
Reduced refining capacity means less competition, tighter supply, and greater exposure to price spikes during disruptions.
The pipeline risk compounds the problem. The San Pablo Bay Pipeline is already idle. If it shuts down permanently, crude will have to be moved by truck, rail, or tanker.
According to a report by Michael A. Mische of the University of Southern California, James W. Rector of the University of California, Berkeley, and Joseph B. Silvi of the University of California, Berkeley, “to replace 100% of the SPB pipeline capacity using a large tanker truck would require and add up to 222 more trucks a day to California’s already stressed highway and freeway system.”
That is 222 more trucks a day going up to Northern California and 222 trucks coming back down to carry another load.
Every additional dollar in transportation costs is paid by consumers. That cost shows up at the pump, in grocery bills, and in the cost of moving goods across the state.
CIPA also highlights policy-driven constraints that are accelerating production declines, including restrictions that prevent routine maintenance of existing wells. Oil producers are having a difficult time upgrading and repairing existing oil wells because of California legislation (SB 1137). The result is predictable: less in-state production, more imports, and higher costs.
For working Californians, high fuel prices hit household budgets immediately. For small businesses, higher transportation and energy costs squeeze margins and drive up prices. For local economies, refinery and pipeline losses mean fewer jobs, less tax revenue, and greater dependence on foreign supply chains that California cannot control.
The letter does not argue against transition. It argues against disorder. An unmanaged collapse of refining and pipeline infrastructure will not reduce demand. It will simply export it, along with jobs and environmental oversight.
The California Energy Commission can act to stabilize the system or accept a future of higher prices and chronic instability for the people who can least afford it.
CIPA Letter to Siva Gunda 12-10-2025 Final
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August 8, 2023 -
All I can say is “This is what Californians voted for.”
So shut up and pay up. No one cares anymore. Why? Because you don’t.
Exactly: Californians squandered the godsent opportunity to replace Newsom with the highly qualified Larry Elder.
Newsom and his likes have cultivated and nurtured to fruition a majority of “living off the system” voters who are clamoring for the opportunity to fill the ranks in California and other states with the Mandanis who are lined up to languish in their respective conquests.
Peruse Trump’s recent exchanges with Mandani: Trump knows Mandani is the keen tip of a force that is changing America forever.
As Tucker Carlson said “diversity is the bane of America”.
No, most legal Californians did not vote or do not support Democrat policies that have resulted in the highest gas prices in the nation. It’s Democrat voter fraud that installed Hair-gel Hitler Newsom and the criminal Democrat thug mafia that mostly controls the state and keeps them in power.
As for Larry Elder, he got into the 2021 governmental race late, he never received an endorsement from CAGOP leaders (many of whom are RINOs), he ran a lackluster political campaign, and he conceded the election to Newsom on election night despite widespread reports of election fraud.
Larry Elder was no match against the criminal Democrat thug mafia and their sophisticated election fraud machine.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the tip of a force that is changing America forever? LOL!
Mandami’s mayoral aide, Cea Weaver, who has said that whites owning houses is racist, burst into TEARS when asked about her mother’s $1.4m Craftsman home by a Daily Mail reporter. Weaver had previously tweeted that ‘homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy’ and that ‘homeownership is racist’ in social media posts that also urged people to ‘impoverish the white middle class.’ Weaver further called on people to ‘seize private property’ and called for the election of communist lawmakers.
In a press conference on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he stands by Weaver.
The privileged former Bryn Mawr College student’s stunning hypocrisy was uncovered by the Daily Mail on Wednesday when it was revealed her mother owns a gorgeous Craftsman home in Nashville worth $1.4 million. Weaver’s mother Applegate, a professor of German Studies at Vanderbilt University and her partner David Blackbourn, a professor of history, purchased their home in Nashville’s Hillsboro West End neighborhood in July 2012 for $814,000, according to county property records. Since then, its value has soared by nearly $600,000 – a surge in value likely to infuriate Weaver, who has been vocal in her dislike of wealth-building through property ownership.
It is amazing how fast the finger pointing stops when the mirror gets turned around on these hypocritical communists?
(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15442191/cea-weaver-nyc-aide-racist-mamdani-cries.html)
“All I can say is “This is what Californians voted for.”
So shut up and pay up”
Yup.
Nope!
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime Tuesday night to deliver a chilling ultimatum to California’s radical Governor Gavin “Hair-gel Hitler” Newsom: the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is coming, and arrests are coming with it.
It’s called governmental engineered shortages of resources. Water, electricity, fuel, etc. This is what happens when 60% of the citizens of the state pay no state income taxes and accept some form of dole from the government, then are allowed to continue to vote in the criminals that create the shortages to keep the population in line.
After 60 years of living in that state, born and raised, raised a family. I was tired of the state telling me shut up and open your wallet, because that’s all you are to us. They are very close to running out of other people’s money. When that happens the non-contributors on the dole are going to burn that place to the ground. Good luck to those that are “sticking it out”. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
“That is 222 more trucks a day going up to Northern California.” AB 5 just started being enforced on
independent truck drivers effective January 1, 2026. Even if the trucks existed, the drivers can’t drive them thanks to Lorena Gonzalez.