When oil companies started pulling out of the California market, Republicans POUNCED.
POLITICO did the meme. Is it a reflex, an ironic joke, or perhaps part of the AP Stylebook I have yet to see?
I don’t know, but it was funny to read that Newsom’s about-face on some anti-fossil fuels policies is in response to the predatory, cat-like actions of the oh-so-powerful Republican Party in California.
This is a continuing thing where progressives, especially in CA, push policies without considering the implications and then just backtrack after the predictable consequences become reality.
Remember they had to do the same thing with AB5. https://t.co/nfS3ZBLGqR pic.twitter.com/vpxOBxa5LG
— AG (@AGHamilton29) August 4, 2025
The story goes like this: Gavin Newsom and the anti-reality Democrats have been bashing the oil companies for years, trying to drive them out of business. That really IS his goal, and he says it is for our own good. He is saving Mother Earth. I believe his policy will leave a hair gel and cosmetics exception, as well as any petroleum products meant for the cosmetic surgery industry, but generally speaking, he wants oil left in the ground. Or shot into space. Not by Elon Musk, of course. You can read Ed’s take here.
He’s run into a problem, though. Unpredictably, his policies to destroy the oil industry have resulted in oil companies reducing their exposure to the California government’s ability to destroy them. And Californians use a lot of oil, and not just for cosmetic surgery and hair gel, so it takes a lot to get oil companies to reposition themselves in that market. 12% of the US population lives in the state, and it has the fifth-highest GDP in the world, if it were a country.
Yet it turns out that oil refiners are leaving the state for some strange reason. I mean, who could have foreseen that? So Newsom is doing his dancy thing again, looking like a man who just did coke before going on stage.
“Newsom’s gestures are like a snake lulling its victim with rhythm until it strikes. Is he a politician—or auditioning for a boy band?” says @RaymondArroyo. #IngrahamAngle #SeenAndUnseen pic.twitter.com/0XSMPBDyKe
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) January 14, 2025
California Gov. Gavin Newsom spent the last four years provoking the Big Oil boogeyman. Now, it’s haunting him.
Newsom’s casting of Big Oil as the villain behind the state’s perpetually high fuel prices signaled the industry’s waning influence in Sacramento. However, the plot took a dramatic turn for the governor and his party when two refineries in the state announced plans to close.
“Refineries all across the globe are struggling,” Newsom said last month in unveiling a suite of proposals to keep refineries solvent, including holding talks with potential buyers and offering incentives to boost in-state oil drilling. “We’ve got some challenges, and so just require some new considerations.”
The about-face is emblematic of Democrats’ course correction on cost-of-living issues in the wake of the presidential election — and provides a real-time demonstration of the political risks of pursuing an aggressive transition away from fossil fuels.
“The reality is, if those refineries close and we have increased gas prices, it’s going to be a problem for everybody,” said Andrew Acosta, a veteran California Democratic campaign consultant. “Not just Gavin Newsom, but every Democrat running for office.”
Reality? REALITY?! When has reality ever influenced Democratic Party policies?
I guess when one is running for president, acknowledging reality every few years may be required. Don’t make a habit of it.
Republicans pounced, and Newsom began his pivot. “I can assure you, beginning last night, we had all hands, and we’re in the process of addressing any anxiety that may be created or any market disruption that may be created by that announcement,” he said in April.
Andy Walz, Chevron’s president of downstream, midstream and chemicals, said California officials have made the state “uninvestable” for companies like his and that it had been only a matter of time before a refiner pulled the plug.
“I don’t think they believed the industry was in trouble,” Walz said of California officials. “I think they misread what was really going on, and it took some real action by some competitors to get them woken up.”
It turns out that pouncing Republicans have magical powers, either over Gavin Newsom or over reality itself.
In any case, Newsom is doing an about-face on his policies; not because the policies are insane, but because voters running out of gas in an election year is bad for politicians’ prospects.
Especially their presidential aspirations.
It represents a departure from a wave of enthusiasm around progressive climate policies that Newsom was stoking as recently as a month before the presidential election.
“They have been raking in unprecedented profits because they can,” Newsom said in October while signing a bill requiring refiners to store more gas to prevent shortages, a concept the industry warned would backfire. ”They’ve been screwing you for years and years and years.”
But then a fifth of the state’s gasoline refining capacity started drying up. Phillips 66 announced in October that it would close its Southern California refinery by the end of 2025. Valero followed suit in April with the planned closure of its Northern California facility in 2026.
Fast forward to earlier this month, when Newsom announced he was taking action to stabilize in-state oil supplies. “It’s not rolling back anything — that’s actually marching forward in a way that is thoughtful and considered,” Newsom told reporters in July, after his administration proposed steering clear of the oil-profits cap the governor had championed as a way to keep refineries open.
Newsom isn’t retreating. He is advancing in a new direction. Onward! It’s essential to get the terminology right, or Newsom might be accused of getting it wrong.
But oil companies’ unexpectedly hasty retreat from the Golden State is forcing officials to reckon with their awkward transition away from gas that until now has largely been theoretical. And it has created a real threat for Democrats if they fail to respond adequately heading into the 2026 midterms after cost-conscious voters resoundingly returned Trump to office last year.
Even some environmentalists are having second thoughts.
“I think Democrats sort of failed to read the room, perhaps in a way that, unfortunately, Trump did,” said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “If we’re not acknowledging people’s day-to-day reality and the challenges they face, it’s really hard for them to care about the existential threat that is climate change.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Please. Stop! Please stop! Any sentient human could have predicted that bashing the hell out of an industry would lead to it exiting the market. California politicians judged that the market there is so huge that they could steal some of the profits, use the companies as whipping boys, and demonize the supposed bad guys without consequence. All politicians demonize to a certain extent–when I got advice about writing fundraising letters, I was told that fear motivates more than hope, so scare the bejeezus out of people.
But Democrats have taken things to a new level, using the tactic not just to raise money but to literally scare up votes. There are Nazis everywhere, and the Earth is literally on fire, and not due to poor management practices and outdated infrastructure. Cow farts and car exhaust are burning the planet up before our eyes.
What Newsom and company don’t seem to understand, at least not until enormous damage is done, is that there is a breaking point. Even Big Oil can be driven away. Ask Venezuela, which has oil practically oozing out of the ground, what politics can do to a vibrant industry.
Hint: it’s not good.
- Editor’s Note: It may not be true that Democrats ruin everything they touch–some make a mean cup of coffee and some pretty great pastries–but they have made ruining things a nasty habit.
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