California is a state of contradictions. We lead the nation in environmental regulation, tout our clear vitality targets with satisfaction and champion a fast transition away from fossil fuels. But regardless of this inexperienced picture, our economic system — and every day life — nonetheless very a lot run on oil and gasoline.
Fossil fuels account for roughly 8% of California’s $3 trillion economic system — however that’s the first 8%. “If you happen to don’t get that first 8%,” I inform my college students, “You don’t get the remainder of our economic system.” Oil powers every little thing from vans to tractors to building tools. With out it, you possibly can’t construct roads or bridges or get items to grocery shops. With out refined petroleum merchandise, you don’t make cement, metal, plastics and even the lithium-ion batteries in electrical autos.
Regardless of these realities, California vitality coverage is resulting in the dismantling of the important infrastructure that helps this important system. Our state has misplaced greater than 30 refineries in the previous few a long time. We at the moment are down to only 9 main gasoline-producing amenities, and two extra are scheduled to shut within the coming months, Phillips 66 in Los Angeles and Valero within the Bay Space. These two vegetation characterize 284,000 barrels of every day manufacturing and account for practically 18% of the state’s complete refining capability.
California sits atop one of many largest untapped reserves on this planet, the Monterey Shale. However due to coverage and regulation, we import most of our oil — together with from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Guyana and Ecuador. California has additionally imported oil from Russia and Venezuela. Sarcastically, we have now among the many world’s cleanest refining requirements, however we import gasoline from locations with decrease environmental and labor protections.
All of that is enabled by a provide chain that’s extra susceptible than most notice. We’ve got no main pipelines bringing oil to California. We depend on ships — many from Asia — that take 30 to 40 days to ship gasoline. These overseas tankers pollute at staggering charges. Stunningly, as a result of that air pollution occurs over worldwide waters, it doesn’t get counted by the California Air Assets Board. Closing a refinery in California and importing extra gasoline causes a internet enhance in air pollution. And including to our reliance on overseas oil is dangerous when international instability is rising.
This isn’t only a self-inflicted vitality disaster within the making. It’s additionally a nationwide safety challenge.
Army bases in California, Nevada and Arizona rely closely on in-state refineries for specialised aviation gasoline and different petroleum merchandise important to operations. As refineries shut down, the availability chain narrows, rising reliance on imports from Asia and elsewhere. These gaps create unacceptable logistical and strategic dangers for U.S. army readiness within the western states.
And bear in mind, there are estimated to be tons of of tens of millions of barrels of accessible oil below our toes. But we’ve constructed an vitality mannequin that relies on importing overseas oil and, now, a rising dependency on foreign-supplied gasoline.
This isn’t simply unsustainable. It’s additionally borderline irresponsible.
California’s vitality transition is inevitable — however how we get there issues. We will’t fake fossil fuels are already gone. We nonetheless want them for the economic system, for mobility, for nationwide safety and for the working individuals who can’t afford a $60,000 electrical car or a photo voltaic roof.
We’ve got the instruments, expertise and sources to guide a accountable vitality transition, one which leverages our in-state manufacturing, balances environmental stewardship with financial pragmatism and protects our most susceptible communities alongside the way in which.
However we have now to be sincere about the place we’re. And proper now, fossil fuels nonetheless energy the Golden State.
Particularly due to coming refinery guidelines and a brand new tax taking effect in July, Californians are set to pay the very best gasoline costs within the nation. Our costs are inflated by an internet of taxes, charges and boutique laws that has grown thicker and dearer over time. Even when oil dropped to $0 per barrel and refining have been free, Californians would nonetheless be paying about $1.82 a gallon on the pump — $1.64 of that from state taxes and costs, plus 18 cents in federal gasoline tax.
In accordance with CalTrans, Californians drive about 1,200 miles a month. If you happen to’re a working-class Californian and gasoline goes up 50 cents per gallon, that provides about $500 in annual gasoline prices. And since you pay for that with after-tax {dollars}, you’d must earn a minimum of an additional $750 simply to cowl it.
That issues to a building employee commuting 60 miles a day in a pickup truck. It issues to a single mother cleansing houses throughout the town or a bodily therapist driving to accommodate calls. Most of those folks can’t simply commerce of their autos for Teslas and dodge gasoline hikes. Shopper evaluation as noted in CalMatters signifies that almost all of EVs are purchased by higher-income Californians residing in areas reminiscent of Atherton, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Mountain View.
The folks hit hardest by rising gasoline costs are those least capable of afford alternate options. For many Californians, there isn’t any viable mass transit out there. Persons are simply caught spending an increasing number of of their earnings on the gas-powered autos their lives rely upon. Our state’s insurance policies punish folks for not with the ability to adapt shortly sufficient to a inexperienced future that’s not but constructed. It’s a regressive tax masquerading as environmental motion.
Till California realistically bridges the hole between aspirational local weather targets and equitable coverage execution, the state’s lofty environmental imaginative and prescient will proceed to relaxation uneasily on the shoulders of its most susceptible.
The brand new state excise tax including about 2 cents a gallon went into impact July 1, and CARB is pushing for a brand new low-carbon gasoline commonplace that would add and doubtlessly main prices to the costs of gasoline and diesel gasoline. Nobody is aware of precisely how a lot — not even the board proposing the foundations.
At a latest Meeting oversight listening to, CARB officers have been requested in the event that they analyzed their laws for client impacts. Their reply: We don’t calculate that. The room went silent. It was a shocking admission — regulators pushing coverage with out operating the mathematics.
No marvel we’re seeing an exodus of working households. By layering new and unclear prices on high of an already overstretched system, CARB and different regulators are creating what might grow to be a self-inflicted financial shock.
And for what? Not environmental progress. California will likely be pressured to supply an increasing number of gasoline from abroad — at larger environmental and financial value. By counting on polluting sources and carbon-intensive transport, we’ve merely outsourced our emissions to different international locations. California shouldn’t be lowering emissions. We’re exporting them.
If this sounds reckless, it’s. However greater than that, it’s unjust.
These insurance policies are usually not burdening the rich. They’re crushing the working class. They’re forcing households to decide on between gasoline and groceries, between job entry and housing stability. They’re additionally outsourcing jobs abroad.
And so they’re being carried out by unelected bureaucrats who, by their very own admission in testimony earlier than California lawmakers, haven’t calculated the real-world impression.
The folks of California deserve higher than this. They deserve honesty, transparency and coverage grounded in financial realism, not ideological fantasy and environmental dogma. If latest and coming adjustments grow to be a tipping level, it received’t be due to some unpredictable international occasion. Will probably be as a result of we selected to not look earlier than we leaped.
The trail ahead calls for a pause, a recalibration and a return to frequent sense. In any other case, this summer time might mark not simply one other value hike — however the day we started dropping management of our vitality future.
Michael A. Mische is an affiliate professor at USC’s Marshall College of Enterprise. A former KPMG principal, he’s the writer of eight books on enterprise and technique.
