Kerry JacksonEditor’s note: This has been excerpted with permission from the Pacific Research Institute. To read the entire article, click here.
What did California officials think was going to happen when they decided it was a dazzlingly brilliant idea to hound the oil industry out of the state? That magic would take over and there would be no consequences for their rash decisions?
Apparently, they weren’t thinking at all, because, according to reports, the California Energy Commission (CEC) is looking for a buyer who will take over one of the refineries that’s being abandoned by a company that’s had enough of being beaten up by Sacramento. Their confidence in their crusade to green out the state seems to have been replaced by panic.
To paraphrase the great Groucho Marx, they have values, and when those wreck things, they have others.
Based on the statements of three sources, Reuters reported last week that the CEC is actively shopping Valero Energy’s Benicia refinery near San Francisco. The facility, with a 145,000-barrel-per-day capacity, is scheduled to close in April, and is one of several refineries that will be shuttered across the state. Later this year, Phillip’s 66 is closing its refinery complex, which has sites in Wilmington and nearby Carson. It will be the fourth California refinery to close since 2020. The announcement was made mere days after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill X2-1, granting the state the power “to require oil refiners to maintain a minimum inventory of fuel to avoid supply shortages.” The law also limits “higher profits for the industry,” and authorizes the bureaucracy to force “refiners to plan for resupply during refiner maintenance outages.”
Valero is also considering closing its refinery in Wilmington, which can produce 85,000 barrels a day. The refining capacity of the two Valero sites is a little more than 14% of the state’s total.
By this time next year, there might not be even a dozen refineries left in the state to produce the 38 million gallons of California’s boutique blend that’s consumed every day.
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The announcement was made mere days after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill X2-1, granting the state the power “to require oil refiners to maintain a minimum inventory of fuel to avoid supply shortages.”
IOW, “Stop working, you polluters, but keep a minimum inventory on hand!”
SO glad I don’t live in CA anymore.
FAFO
Beat me to it!
Problem is, those those the FA are not the ones that are going to be on the FO receiving end like the schlebs in the state.
With 100% mail in ballots and a supermajority in the Assembly, the Dems have bullet proofed themselves to never worry about the FO side of the equation.
Newsom has the same hopes for the country.
Don’t underestimate the snake oil addicted idiots that would follow the snake oil salesman. The saying has always been, California is merely a few years ahead of the country.
Govevernor Nuisance should be made to Life inv a Tent and walk to his meetings