A billboard shows gas prices at a Chevron gas station in Alameda, Calif., on Thursday, May 21, 2026, where company signs blame Sacramento policies for high fuel costs. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)
If you live in California, you don’t need a headline to tell you gas is expensive. You see it every time you pull into a station. Five dollars. Six dollars. Sometimes more.
The usual explanations get thrown around. Oil companies. Global markets. Speculators.
But if you look at the actual numbers behind California’s energy system, a simpler explanation emerges: the laws passed in California over the past 20 years have reshaped supply, added costs, and made our state more vulnerable to price spikes.
That isn’t a slogan. It’s what the data shows.
California is the second-largest gasoline market in the United States. Every single day, we consume about 37 million gallons of gasoline and another 8 million gallons of diesel. That fuel keeps everything running. It powers commutes, delivery trucks, farm equipment, construction sites, and emergency vehicles. It supports tens of thousands of jobs and contributes more than $166 billion to our state’s economy.
In other words, California still runs on gasoline and diesel.
But here’s the part most people don’t realize. In the 1980s, California had more than 30 refineries. By April 2026, we will be down to just six major refineries producing our state’s special gasoline blend. Over the years, facilities in Bakersfield, Paramount, Martinez, Rodeo, and elsewhere have shut down or converted.
When you reduce the number of refineries, you reduce the amount of fuel you can produce in-state. Yet demand has not disappeared. When supply shrinks and demand remains strong, prices rise. That’s not political. It’s basic economics.
It gets more complicated.
California now produces less than 25 percent of the oil it uses. That means we import the majority of our crude oil. Some comes from Alaska. A large share comes from foreign countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Brazil, and others.
Shipping oil from the San Joaquin Valley through a pipeline might cost about a dollar per barrel. Shipping it across oceans from the Middle East can cost five or six times that. Those transportation costs don’t vanish. They’re built into the price you pay at the pump.
So we limit local production and then pay more to import oil from thousands of miles away.
On top of supply issues, California drivers pay a stack of taxes and regulatory program costs that many don’t see. As of late 2025, those state and federal taxes and climate-related program costs add up to about $1.31 per gallon.
That includes the state excise tax, the federal gas tax, state and local sales taxes, a storage tank fee, and costs tied to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and cap-and-trade program. Whether you support those climate programs or not, they add real dollars to each gallon before the oil is refined, transported, or sold.
Over the past two decades, California has also passed a series of major climate mandates. These include deeper greenhouse gas reduction targets, a net-zero requirement by 2045, restrictions on new drilling in certain areas, closure mandates for idle wells, and expanded authority for regulators over refinery operations.
Taken individually, each law may have been passed with environmental goals in mind. But collectively, they send a clear message to investors and energy companies: long-term oil production and refining are not welcome in California.
When investment slows, infrastructure ages. When infrastructure closes, supply tightens. When supply tightens in a state that still consumes tens of millions of gallons a day, prices become more volatile and more expensive.
Even the state has acknowledged supply concerns. After refinery closure announcements, officials directed the California Energy Commission to explore ways to stabilize fuel supply, including maintaining in-state refining capacity and increasing imports. The need for that discussion tells you something important. We are walking a tightrope between policy ambition and market reality.
The real question is not whether California should pursue climate goals. Many residents support those goals. The real question is how fast we can move without crushing working families in the process.
High gas prices do not hit everyone equally. The executive who works from home and drives an electric vehicle is not feeling the same pressure as the warehouse worker commuting 40 miles because housing near the coast is unaffordable. The contractor with two trucks. The farmworker in the Central Valley. The single mom driving from job to job.
When gas climbs past $5 or $6 a gallon, the pain isn’t abstract. It changes grocery budgets. It raises delivery costs. It pushes up the price of food and everyday goods.
Energy affordability is not a side issue. It’s a working-class issue.
California has made deliberate policy choices:reducing in-state production and refining capacity while increasing reliance on imports—resulting in longer supply chains, higher global emissions, and higher costs for consumers. Our leaders should prioritize protecting the fuel we produce here at home under the strictest environmental and labor standards.
We can debate whether those choices are worth it. But we should not pretend there are no tradeoffs.
Gas prices in California are not a mystery. They are the predictable result of decisions made over time.
The question now is whether we are willing to confront the consequences honestly, and whether we can find a path forward that protects both the environment and the people who are struggling to afford life in this state.
Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh represents California’s 19th State Senate District.
