After years of demonizing, regulating and suing the oil and gas industry, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suddenly hurrying to keep it in his state as a potential gas crisis and rumored 2028 run for the White House loom large.
Newsom’s administration is now scrambling to keep refineries open and reportedly moving to incentivize in-state oil drilling, according to Politico. California’s Democratic leaders have sued energy companies, unleashed stringent regulations and demonized the industry to add pressure on energy companies for years, but Newsom and some Democrats are now fighting to retain the state’s oil and gas industry as California’s energy problems come to a head and as Newsom reportedly gets ready for a possible 2028 run for president.
“After years of pushing radical climate policies that punished working families, Governor Newsom is finally waking up to what Californians need, he’s now scrambling to secure the very fossil fuels he tried to eliminate,” CEO of the American Energy Institute Jason Isaac told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This sudden embrace of petroleum isn’t leadership, it’s survival. California’s energy future depends on realism, not green delusions.”
Newsom signed a bill in October that mandates oil refineries to store additional gas to help skirt shortages.
“They continue to lie, and they continue to manipulate. They have been raking in unprecedented profits because they can,” Newsom said as he signed the bill, railing against the oil and gas industry. “They’ve been screwing you for years and years and years.”
Newsom’s office referred the DCNF to the governor’s recent comments on the oil and gas industry, in which he states that he has been “completely consistent” when calling for accountability and a realistic net-zero energy transition.
“I’m not naive as someone that drove here and as someone that flies around the state,” Newsom said on July 31. “We are all the beneficiaries of oil and gas. No one is naive about that.”
California officials have unleashed regulators, allowing them to place strict rules on the oil and gas industry as the state still pursues the goal of net-zero emissions by 2045. California continues to import oil despite being oil-rich while enforcing regulations that bog down the oil and gas industry, including the low carbon fuel emission standard and the “cap-and-trade” program.
Newsom’s office reportedly began distributing a draft bill in July that would pave the way for more drilling in Kern County, which environmental activists have railed against for years, according to Politico. Newsom has previously aligned with environmental activists, advocating for a law that limits oil wells alongside celebrities and activists in May 2024, for example.
Additionally, Newsom’s administration filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration almost immediately after President Donald Trump signed resolutions to terminate California’s de facto national electric vehicle (EV) mandate in June. California also sued several major oil companies in 2023 over alleged climate change-related damages.
“For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us – covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet,” Newsom said at the time, arguing that oil companies should pay some of the clean-up costs for wildfires and other weather events supposedly caused by climate change.
Two major refineries are set to close in California in the next year, which may spike the Golden State’s gas prices to as high as $8 per gallon, according to one estimate from the University of Southern California. Some state officials have lambasted regulators for the climbing gas costs, and the state is now reportedly looking to find a buyer for one of the refineries before its impending 2026 closure.
Newsom argues that without passing bills nominally calling for transparency in the oil and gas industry, the state would not have known about the impending refinery closures with enough time to prepare for the consequences. Two days after the governor signed the law requiring refineries to hold extra gas in October 2024, Phillips 66 announced it would be closing one of its refineries, while Valero announced its decision to close its Benicia refinery six months later.
Notably, Newsom has touted more moderate policies when it comes to energy and culture issues as rumors of a potential 2028 presidential run swirl.
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