- California is considering state ownership of oil refineries as a response to the potential closure of several major refineries due to environmental regulations and market dynamics.
- The closure of refineries, such as the Phillips 66 facility in Wilmington, could lead to fuel shortages, price spikes and logistical issues, given California’s limited import options and lack of a multi-state logistics network.
- The proposal for state ownership is viewed as problematic, with concerns raised about the government’s ability to efficiently run refineries and manage the complex industry.
- California’s regulatory environment, including policies like banning gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, has contributed to the current refinery crisis by making it unprofitable for private companies to operate in the state.
- The situation highlights the need for a more balanced approach to energy policy, as California’s current trajectory could result in higher gas prices, shortages and a government struggling to address the problems it has created.
(Natural News)—In a stark turn of events, California is considering a radical step: state ownership of oil refineries. This move, driven by the looming closure of several major refineries, could have profound economic and logistical implications. As the state teeters on the brink of a fuel supply crisis, the potential consequences of government intervention are cause for significant concern.
The reality of refinery closures
California’s gasoline demand has been on a gradual decline, thanks to more efficient engines and the increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). However, the state still relies heavily on fossil fuels, and the closure of refineries without a reliable replacement strategy could spell disaster. Major refiners, including Chevron, Marathon, Phillips 66, PBF Energy and Valero, are under intense pressure from aggressive environmental regulations and shifting market dynamics. Some have already transitioned away from gasoline production, while others are contemplating permanent shutdowns.
The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington is set to close by the end of the year, and further closures could follow. As Skip York, chief energy strategist at Turner Mason & Co., warns, “Demand will decline gradually, but supply will fall out in chunks.” This mismatch between supply and demand could lead to fuel shortages, price spikes and logistical nightmares — none of which the state seems adequately prepared for.
State ownership: A disaster in the making
In response to the refinery crisis, the California Energy Commission has proposed a range of solutions, including state ownership of oil refineries. This extreme measure would place California alongside countries like Venezuela and Iran, where government-run refineries are the norm. The Western States Petroleum Association has already raised concerns about the feasibility of such a move, stating, “This is a very complex and hard business to run… There are commercial barriers and technical barriers that take a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the industry.”
The idea that state bureaucrats, many of whom have long opposed the oil industry, could suddenly manage refineries efficiently is deeply flawed. Running a refinery requires specialized expertise, operational efficiency and adaptability—qualities rarely associated with government-run enterprises. As Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher pointed out, “We’re moving toward price controls and government takeover of industries. That’s never worked well in the history of the world.”
The supply chain nightmare
California is often referred to as a “gasoline island” due to its lack of a multi-state logistics network to mitigate supply disruptions. The state lacks pipelines bringing gasoline from neighboring states, and the antiquated Jones Act restricts ocean shipments from the refinery-rich Gulf Coast. Currently, California imports only 8% of its gasoline, with the remaining 92% refined within the state. If more refineries shut down, the state will be forced to import significantly larger quantities of gasoline, primarily from Asia. This scenario could lead to:
- Higher transportation costs
- Increased vulnerability to global supply chain disruptions
- Potential price volatility tied to international markets
Despite the environmental concerns over crude oil shipments, Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher noted, “People freak out about the environmental impacts of crude oil shipments, but no one’s freaking out about the environmental impacts of gasoline imports.”
Historical context: A legacy of hostile regulation
California’s regulatory framework has been increasingly hostile to the oil industry for years. Policies such as banning the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and potential penalties on refinery profits are making it increasingly unprofitable to operate refineries in the state. Chevron, a California staple since 1879, has announced plans to move its headquarters to Texas. Andy Walz, Chevron’s president of downstream, midstream and chemicals, summed up the issue: “Recent California policies… erode our confidence going forward.”
This regulatory environment has not only driven companies out of the state but has also created an atmosphere of uncertainty and mistrust. Instead of reassessing its approach, California seems determined to double down on policies that are driving the energy sector to the brink.
What’s the endgame?
State Senator Brian Jones bluntly stated, “The state has no business being in the oil refinery business.” Yet, here we are, discussing the possibility of California taking over one of the most complex industries in the world—all because its policies have made it impossible for private refiners to operate profitably.
The obvious solution would be to ease regulatory burdens, allow market forces to work and support energy diversity rather than forcing an abrupt transition to EVs. However, California’s leadership appears determined to force a radical transformation, regardless of the cost. The result? Higher gas prices, more shortages and a government scrambling to fix problems of its own making.
California is walking a dangerous road, and if state-owned refineries become a reality, the fuel crisis could get far worse before it gets better. The state’s energy policies have long been a subject of debate, but the current situation highlights the need for a more balanced and pragmatic approach to ensure reliable and affordable energy for all Californians.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
