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Chevron Launches New Sign Campaign Targeting Sacramento as California Gas Prices Hit New Highs

Chevron Launches New Sign Campaign Targeting Sacramento as California Gas Prices Hit New Highs

It will be interesting to see how the Chevron sign campaign works out for the company, on this busy Memorial Day weekend.

For years, I hoped the petroleum energy giants would push back against global warming activists, eco-nuts who believed carbon dioxide was toxic, and regulation-mad bureaucrats.

However, these corporations were content to try to negotiate with these extremists. This encouraged the extremists in California to double down, as there is no effective check on their lunatic policy-making ideas.

For example, Gavin Newsom signed into law a measure ordering energy producers to stockpile gasoline, despite pushback from industry.  Then, the oil companies began to see the handwriting on the wall and made a strategic retreat.

Phillips 66 terminated operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025. Chevron moved its headquarters to Texas, citing high taxes and burdensome regulations.  Valero Energy Corporation, which announced plans to close its Benicia oil refinery (located just northeast of San Francisco, in 2026), has just been fined for “air quality violations” to the tune of $3.25 million.

However, Chevron has taken a new approach… this time directly targeting the regulators and politicians who view its firm as evil and a cash cow deserving to be pilfered.

Drivers across California, including here in the Central Valley, may be noticing new signs posted at some Chevron gas stations pointing the finger at Sacramento for high gas prices.

The signs carry messages like: “Sacramento policies did this. Now, you pay more.”

Others saying, “California has the highest gas taxes and fees in America.”

The signs also include a QR code customers can scan for more information.

Chevron says the campaign is meant to explain why Californians are paying some of the highest gas prices in the country.

California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Press Office was quick to respond with snark.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is in a spat with a major oil company over who is to blame for the state’s high gas prices, with the Democratic governor’s office urging drivers not to fill up at Chevron stations over Memorial Day weekend.

“Pro tip: unbranded gas comes from the same refineries, storage tanks, and pipelines, and it meets the same state standards to keep your engine running clean,” Newsom’s office posted Thursday on X. “Big Oil is already making billions off Trump’s Iran War; don’t let them rip you off even more by overpaying for the brand name.”

Newsom’s office cited an analysis by a group within the state’s energy commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry, that found that Chevron averaged more than 60 to 80 cents per gallon above unbranded alternatives.

However, the response really wasn’t what Newsom was expecting:

Then the U.S. Gas and Oil Association bolstered Chevron’s position with feedback of its own.

“Pro tip: Don’t take Pro tips from a Politician who hasn’t driven himself anywhere since 2004,” the group wrote in a post on X Thursday that had gotten nearly 100,000 views.

The association’s president doubled down on the criticism in a statement to The California Post.

“It’s interesting how the politicians who are picked up every morning by a black SUV are experts on gas prices but always fail to recognize the impact their bad decisions actually have on gas prices,” Tim Stewart said.

The group had been referencing Newsom’s taxpayer-funded drivers, who ferry the governor between events across the state and leave him out of touch with everyday commuters.

“Chevron works hard to help educate Californians about Sacramento’s energy and tax policies. These adversarial policies have resulted in California losing nearly 18% of its refining capacity in less than a year,” a Chevron spokesperson told The California Post.

“Most Chevron-branded gas stations in California are independently owned and operated. Attacking California’s small businesses like this is deeply unfair and irresponsible. We urge Sacramento to take energy policy seriously and stop making life expensive for California drivers,” they added.

The growing tension between California regulators and oil companies underscores a disconnect between policymakers and the realities of energy demand, with producers continuing to supply a critical, everyday resource even as they face increasingly burdensome and counterproductive regulations.

As companies push back and scale operations in response to these policies, they are highlighting the essential role they play in keeping the state moving and raising important questions about whether current regulatory approaches are driving up costs and undermining energy reliability rather than supporting practical, balanced solutions.

It will be interesting to see how the Chevron sign campaign works out for the company, on this busy Memorial Day weekend.

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Comments


 
 0 
 
 16
fscarn | May 24, 2026 at 7:18 pm

Once again, the problem is attributable to what is the cause of so many issues,

Too
Much
Government


     
     0 
     
     15
    DaveGinOly in reply to fscarn. | May 24, 2026 at 7:28 pm

    “Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
    “Many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.”
    Thomas Sowell
    Wise man and national treasure


       
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       7
      alaskabob in reply to DaveGinOly. | May 24, 2026 at 8:37 pm

      Isn’t it comforting that Newsom and the Dems can suspend reality? And all of those rightists, wreckers, revisionists, counter-revolutionaries and capitalist-roaders that stand in the way of socialist progress.


       
       0 
       
       6
      Dimsdale in reply to DaveGinOly. | May 25, 2026 at 6:52 am

      I am trying to imagine a world where Thomas Sowell was appointed to the SCOTUS and not DIE equity hires like KJB.

      Shining city on a hill indeed….


 
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 7
DaveGinOly | May 24, 2026 at 7:24 pm

Don’t take Pro tips from a Politician who hasn’t driven himself anywhere since 2004.

Burn.

Now do Governor Ferguson.


 
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 3
Spike3 | May 25, 2026 at 12:45 am

Some say this is retribution for Chevron reneging on Newscum’s blackmail to get free gallons of crude oil to slick his hair.


 
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 4
henrybowman | May 25, 2026 at 12:53 am

The best part about THIS sign campaign is that the station owners WON’T be scraping them off the pumps as soon as they go up, like they did to all our Biden “I DID THIS!” stickers… the fricking cowards.


 
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 2
isfoss | May 25, 2026 at 10:48 am

Correct, station owners won’t remove the signs; Democrat losers will spray paint over them.


 
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slagothar | May 25, 2026 at 5:42 pm

If these “true believers” belief these dire outcomes are coming, this risk should be factored into their borrowing costs.


 
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nraendowment | May 26, 2026 at 12:53 pm

Chevon’s signs are absolutely correct. Start to correct the situation by kicking the communists out of their central hive in Sacramento, then choke CARB by the throat until it stops moving. It’s a zombie bureaucracy that outlived its usefulness decades ago but lives on as a Leftist monster.

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