What has California's war on fossil fuels really accomplished?

California has gone after the fossil fuel industry with vigor, but those efforts don't appear to have had much of an impact on climate change, while proving to be detrimental to the state's economy.

The state's continued and long-term efforts to undermine energy production within its borders have effectively displaced, rather than reduced, fossil fuel production, and the jobs associated with that production , in other states and areas of the world, while US oil production is at record levels. . California's push against fossil fuels has also done little to move the needle on climate change, which alarmists continue to insist is accelerating at a dangerous rate, but it has increased energy costs for Californians, decreased reliability of the grid and has discouraged corporate investment that would create or keep jobs in the state, energy policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In the first week of 2024, Chevron, a California-based oil company, announced which is writing down its existing interests in California by more than $4 billion, a move driven in large part by the state's burdensome environmental regulatory structure. Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the US, announced Friday that it is also writing down its California assets, similarly citing the state's regulatory challenges.

While companies are writing down the value of their California operations, they are making big plays to expand the reach and scale of their interests in states that are more amenable to energy production, especially Texas. Chevron i Exxon Mobil acquired Hess and Pioneer Resources, respectively, by the end of 2023. Although the deals have yet to be finalized, Hess and Pioneer have sizable portfolios in Texas' Permian Basin that made each smaller company an attractive target for the acquisition of the main competitors.

Meanwhile, the United States produces about 13.2 million barrels of oil per day, a figure that is at an all-time high, seconds in Forbes.

“For more than two decades, politicians like Governor Newsom have pummeled California's conventional energy producers, both large and small, with excessive taxes, regulations and threats of profit-taking… Big business can stand better the onslaught of red tape, but smaller producers can't afford the kinds of liabilities that are taking on the industry,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told DCNF. “Many businesses have already moved out of state, along with hundreds of thousands of residents as a result of these and other harmful policies … such as capping profit margins, hurting consumers by making investments conventional energy systems are uneconomical. Such policies have outsourced jobs to other states and increased California's dependence on oil and electricity imports, all with little or no environmental benefit.”

California's local oil and gas production provides about 50,000 jobs statewide, including 31,000 jobs in the San Joaquin Valley, a region that is generally less economically successful than other parts of the state. seconds to Californians for energy independence.

California was one of the top US states for oil production in 2022, with operators in the state pumping more than 124 million barrels that year. seconds to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The state saw its domestic oil and gas production drop by nearly 30% over the past four years. seconds in the EIA data, a trend that Californians for energy independence attributes primarily to “state and local energy policies that shut down production.”

The state is widely considered to be on the cutting edge climate policy, seconds at Stateline. Away from regulations focused on oil and gas production, the state has pushed aggressively electric vehicle i truck rules, archived a climate change lawsuit against Chevron and other oil majors alleging that they deliberately tried to mislead the public about the nature of climate change and promulgated a historic corporate emissions disclosure requirement.

As for the lawsuit against the big oil companies, California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has been openly hostile in his statements about the defendants, painting them as liars.

“The state is home to rich and well-understood reserves of oil and natural gas that Democratic policies have made uneconomic to produce. California's governing Democrats have destroyed tens of thousands of good-paying jobs that, d 'otherwise, they would be used in the oil and gas industry in efforts to exploit these resources,' David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas business who now regularly consults and writes about the energy industry, he told the DCNF. “The supreme irony in all this, of course, is that Newsom has created a situation in which his state now imports most of its oil from another economic basket case, Venezuela, to meet its consumption needs that American domestic industry could easily satisfy if allowed access to California's own oil and gas resources.”

The current average gas price per gallon at the pump that Californians pay is about $4.70, the highest price in the country. seconds to AAA data. By comparison, the national average currently sits at around $3.09 per gallon.

Beyond energy production and high fuel prices, the state's residential ratepayers faced the second-highest average retail electricity rates in the entire US in October 2023, seconds in the most recent monthly data published by the EIA.

“Extreme events caused by climate change are causing greater demand for energy and putting the power grid at greater risk of outages, in California and beyond. The events include extreme heat and wildfires that threaten the grid with frequency and increasing intensity,” a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission (CEC) told DCNF. “Electrifying California's economy and building a reliable, safe, affordable and clean electricity grid are the cornerstones of both our climate leadership and our economic plan for the future. The state is taking action on multiple fronts.”

Additionally, the state's power grid has come very close to blackouts in recent years, particularly in September 2022, when California's grid operator he urged residents have to turn on their thermostats during the afternoon and evening hours to save energy for ten consecutive days amid a heat wave that jeopardized the reliability of the grid.

“Reasonable people would expect state governments to do as much as possible to make life easier for residents. Unfortunately, California's government is doing just the opposite,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Energy Center, told DCNF , Climate and Environment of the Heritage Foundation. “That's one reason 75,000 people left California last year, according to the Census Bureau.”

The adequacy of the power supply is a problem in the state that Newsom decided refill the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility to protect against power price hikes and blackouts in August; Newsom had already made a campaign promise to close the facility. That same month, the CEC voted against shut down three fossil fuel plants in Southern California to keep them available to avoid shutdowns if necessary.

“The people of California deserve to know when their statewide green agenda will begin to work, and by 'work' I mean when grid reliability and overall costs will reflect the promises made with green use. The price California at the pump and the cost of electricity are among the highest in the nation and only continue to rise, while the power grid becomes more unstable,” said Daniel Turner, executive director and founder of the advocacy group the Power The Future energy, at the DCNF. . “Green-backed elected officials, including Governor Newsom, have promised that going green will be a boon, and yet the only result has been pain for the average Californian who can't flee the state like they already have made hundreds of thousands… Nowhere has the 'going green' been implemented if it has been a benefit to the people: not Germany, not California, not New York.”

Newsom's office and California's independent system operator did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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