POLITICS: California’s oil isn’t better in the Bahamas

California is so desperate for gasoline — despite sitting on billions of barrels in oil reserves — that it is importing fuel via the Bahamas.

That’s because Gavin Newsom’s regulators are driving the fossil fuel industry out of the state.

Gas prices are currently skyrocketing in the Golden State, after Valero closed its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery. Prices have risen nearly 40 cents per gallon over the last month.

California was already facing upward pressure on gas prices due to the closure of the Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles in October. That is when the state began turning to the unusual Bahamian route. 

As The California Post noted last week, there is a shortage of tankers shipping fuel directly from the Gulf of America via the Panama Canal.

It is cheaper to send fuel via the Bahamas on foreign-flagged vessels, thanks to an obscure law called the Jones Act, which was written to protect American shipbuilders and drives up the cost of shipping oil domestically.

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But California doesn’t need to import gasoline — in theory.

Decades ago, California produced much of its own fuel.

Now, California imports the majority of its crude oil. 

The state’s “green” policies claim to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and saving the planet from climate change, but all they really do is shift production elsewhere.

Shipping fuel to California also burns carbon, and creates additional environmental risks. 

California politicians are running out of people to blame.

In past years, when prices have spiked, Newsom and the Democrat-dominated legislature have blamed “gouging” by oil companies. They have called special sessions to pass laws aimed at clamping down on the industry.

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(They never seem to consider cutting gas taxes or reversing the state’s costly “cap-and-trade” policy, which has a negligible effect on the global climate but a big effect on California drivers.)

Now, refineries are simply shutting down — often at great cost — rather than staying in business in a hostile business environment.

The Trump administration is trying to help California solve a problem of its own creation by encouraging oil and gas production locally. Most controversially of all, Trump is pushing for a revival of offshore oil production.

That has raised familiar concerns about environmental protection. But is it fair to risk the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean?

Already, tankers and pipelines pose a risk to our own environment. It’s not as it pushing oil and gas production out of state solves that problem.

And is it wise to import foreign oil — in some cases from regimes such as Colombia and Iraq that are unstable, or hostile to the United States?

Until the world no longer needs gasoline — and that day is a long way off, much further away than California’s 2035 deadline for ending sales of gasoline-powered cars — we will need affordable, safe, and reliable sources of fuel.

It makes no sense to go halfway around the wold to find a resource that we could produce right here at home.