Ryan Cummings and Neale Mahoney, PRESS DEMOCRAT
Instead of industry handouts, the state should expand import infrastructure to protect California households from the refinery outages that regularly disrupt the state’s fuel supply. At the Benicia site, this would mean turning the refinery into a terminal where importers could bring in and store fuel for distribution to local gas stations.
Since the start of the conflict with Iran, gasoline prices in California and across the country have increased by more than $1 a gallon, straining already tight family budgets. In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, the California oil industry has been using this moment to try to jam through its wish list, lobbying for more drilling permits, suspension of taxes, the elimination of environmental programs and subsidies for refineries.
While the industry claims these measures would bring meaningful relief at the pump, the truth is that caving to the oil industry’s campaign would have limited benefits for California families.
Take oil production first. More drilling in California would not insulate the state from price spikes, because the price of oil is determined on the global market. The U.S. is a net oil exporter, yet that status offered no protection from the price spike that followed the conflict with Iran.
In oil-drenched Texas, pump prices are up $1.20 a gallon since the start of the conflict, only a few cents off California’s $1.23 increase. California’s oil production is a negligible share of global supply, meaning more drilling would allow producers to sell more into a high-priced global market, but California consumers would see little if any effect on prices at the pump.
Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/04/30/cummings-and-mahoney-oil-industrys-wish-list-wont-help-californians/