The moment Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz Gavin Newsom's California ran out of options.
It was the only state that had no fallback.
What Democrats spent 20 years building in California is now everyone else's crisis.
California Refinery Closures Turned the State Into an Energy Island
California once had more than 40 refineries.
Governor Gavin Newsom's regulators ran most of them out of business with taxes, environmental mandates, and cap-and-trade costs that made refining unprofitable.
Chevron moved its headquarters from California to Texas – and nobody in Sacramento seemed to notice.
By the time Phillips 66 shut down its Los Angeles facility in October 2025 and Valero closed its Benicia plant in April 2026, California had lost nearly 20 percent of its remaining refining capacity in a single year.
Six major refineries now serve a state that burns 58 million gallons of transportation fuel every single day – 11 million gallons of jet fuel, 10 million gallons of diesel, and 37 million gallons of gasoline.
The Sierra Mountains cut California off from the rest of the country's pipeline network.
No fuel moves across those mountains by pipe.
Energy experts Ronald Stein and Mike Ariza describe the result as an "energy island" – a market that can only be resupplied by ship, and that takes at least three weeks to source replacement fuel when a refinery goes offline.
Forty years ago, California refined mostly its own crude – less than 6 percent came from foreign countries.
Today that number exceeds 60 percent – and on February 1, 2026, Iraq was California's single largest oil supplier.
How the Iran War Triggered a California Fuel Shortage and Drained Military Reserves
When the Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz and disrupted Persian Gulf shipping, California had no cushion.
Asian refineries that had been supplying the state – South Korea, India, Singapore – were suddenly competing for the same shrinking global fuel pool.
In the last two months, California shipped in more jet fuel through the Panama Canal than it had in the previous 36 years combined.
Gulf Coast refineries are running at 98 percent capacity just to keep California from rationing fuel.
It still wasn't enough.
The Pentagon authorized emergency draws from the nation's military fuel reserves – wartime stockpiles meant to keep fighter jets airborne and warships moving – to prevent a California supply collapse.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called it an "energy desert" – a policy-driven catastrophe, he said, that has driven up prices and gutted national security.
California hosts more than 30 military bases.
Every one of them depends on a fuel supply chain now held together by Iraqi oil, ships rerouted through Panama, and emergency Pentagon withdrawals.
Newsom Blocks Defense Production Act Fix as California Energy Crisis Deepens
Trump saw the threat and moved.
In March 2026, he invoked the Defense Production Act and ordered the restart of offshore oil production and the Santa Ynez Pipeline, overriding California regulations that had blocked domestic energy for decades.
Newsom sued to stop it, calling Trump's emergency action "desperate, reckless, and illegal."
He filed that lawsuit while the Pentagon was drawing down reserves and California gas prices were above six dollars a gallon.
Congressman Vince Fong has been warning about this since before the war started.
Fong said Newsom deliberately shrank refining capacity and in-state production, gutting the state's defense posture to satisfy his far-left base.
He called it "not only incompetent, but irresponsible and dangerous."
That's the charitable read.
Newsom destroyed an industry that kept the military fueled, blocked every attempt to reverse course, and sued the president trying to fix it during an active war.
Energy experts Stein and Ariza conclude that without immediate federal intervention under the Defense Production Act, California faces total supply chain collapse – taking neighboring states and every military installation on the West Coast down with it.
Trump is acting.
Newsom hired lawyers to stop him.
And somewhere in an aircraft hangar, a jet that was supposed to protect the Pacific is grounded.
Sources:
- Stephen Green, "California's Impending Energy Disaster That Nobody Talks About," PJ Media, July 30, 2026.
- Ronald Stein and Mike Ariza, "The Impending Collapse of California's Transportation Fuel Infrastructure," CO2 Coalition, July 30, 2026.
- "Newsom's Energy Policies Could Jeopardize National Security," Washington Examiner, November 24, 2025.
- Katy Grimes, "Interior Sec. Doug Burgum Annihilates Gov. Newsom for Whining About Energy Prices Yet Purposefully DESTROYING Refineries," California Globe, June 6, 2026.
- Rep. Vince Fong, "Newsom's War on Energy Is Crippling California and Undermining Our Military," fong.house.gov, December 8, 2025.
- "California Running Out of Fuel as Imports Dry Up, Trump Needs to Act to Prevent Crisis: Experts," Just the News, April 16, 2026.