California has finally won its drawn-out battle against fossil fuels.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat politicians, eco-activists, and the elite media have long made the oil firms the enemy and made them a target of regulatory attack. A few examples:
Well, the state may have won the war…as the last California-bound oil tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz since war erupted is now offloading its shipment at the Port of Long Beach.
The New Corolla loaded up in Iraq on Feb. 24 — just days before U.S. and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran, plunging the region into turmoil and sparking a double blockade of commercial shipping.In two weeks, the Hong Kong-flagged tanker will have fully unloaded at the Marathon Petroleum terminal and departed again for distant waters. After that, California must figure out how to replace some 200,000 barrels of oil a day that will no longer be arriving from the Persian Gulf.California’s own supply of crude oil has been declining since the 1980s, due to aging fields and a geology that makes drilling particularly costly. The state’s gasoline refining capacity is also falling off, increasing reliance on imports and highlighting California’s status as an isolated energy island without gas pipelines to bring in supply from other states.
However, this victory is hollow. And while Americans are getting pinched at the pump, Californians are about ready to be placed on the rack due to the feckless eco-activism of its politicians and bureaucrats.
Those in the oil industry are now enjoying a much-deserved moment of schadenfreude.
Oil giants said the region only had itself to blame and warned drivers and consumers across the West Coast will feel the squeeze.A spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Association told The Post: “This shows the recklessness of California’s policy of intentionally outsourcing our critical energy infrastructure to other parts of the world.“California’s economy depends on a reliable supply of fuel – when that supply is interrupted, consumers and business pay the price.”A spokesman for Chevron, which has been vocal about California’s energy policies, said: “We believe many years of Sacramento’s adversarial policies toward refining and energy production have left the state at the end of a long, fragile supply chain.
Of course, California could have helped itself by allowing oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara. Once the first refinery was closed, perhaps the representatives could have heeded petroleum industry warnings.
Now, all that is left is regret…..and Trump-blame.
At this point, the state appears to be relying on stockpiles and other petroleum sources.
California has petroleum stockpiles and can pivot to other sources like Brazil, Ecuador, Guyana, Canada, and increased U.S. domestic crude.Yet the scramble itself exposes a deeper rot: state-level decisions have made California uniquely vulnerable to supply shocks like the current Middle East disruptions.Geography does not help. California is an “energy island,” with very limited pipelines from other U.S. regions, forcing tanker imports, typically going through the Panama Canal.
California’s political class spent decades declaring war on the very industry that kept the lights on and the engines of prosperity running.
Now the bill has come due.
The tab isn’t being picked by Newsom or the eco-activists who cheered each refinery closure and filed each climate lawsuit, but by the working families who simply need to fill their tanks and keep their businesses afloat.
The Golden State, once synonymous with innovation and abundance, has engineered its own energy trap through a toxic combination of ideological zealotry, regulatory hostility, and breathtaking incompetence. History will note that California didn’t run out of oil…it simply ran out of the political will to allow it.
The architects of this debacle will, of course, board their private jets, invoke the name of Donald Trump as a ritual incantation, and pivot seamlessly toward the next green fantasy.
The rest of us Californians? We’ll be standing at the pump, staring at prices that would make OPEC blush, paying the full and final cost of being governed by people who mistook virtue signaling for an energy policy.
(Note: Until vote-fraud protections are enacted in this state, do not say we deserve this).
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