It’s funny how a presidential run changes a politician. Gov. Gavin Newsom, obviously aiming at the Oval Office in 2028, has flipped on oil drilling in California. Based on a draft piece of legislation Newsom’s office is apparently floating, Bloomberg reported the proposed bill “would establish ‘plug-to-drill’ permitting until 2036 where two wells would have to be plugged and abandoned before a new one is drilled.”
That will be good news for the new workers hired. Based on U.S. Labor Department data, the average pay in the petroleum industry in 2023 was $244,452 a year, compared to $87,360 for all state industries, Raymond Sfeir told us; he is the director of Chapman University’s Anderson Center for Economic Research.
According to data from the U.S. Energy Administration, California field production of crude oil declined from 1.1 million barrels per day in July 1985 to 579,000 in Jan. 2019, when Newsom took office. Then it declined further to 270,000 in April 2025. That means, over the past 40 years, drilling crashed 75%. And in Newsom’s six-and-a-half years in office, the plunge was 53%. Sfeir said, “The governor’s plan does not mean that we are going to regain all the employment lost, but there is no doubt that employment in oil extraction will be revitalized.”
Instead of supposedly helping the climate or inspiring the world to abandon cheap and reliable energy in favor of costly green energy, all Sacramento has accomplished is push lucrative jobs to other states and countries. By attacking California’s petroleum sector, short-sighted politicians like Newsom have shot the state in the foot.
Indeed, Newsom’s new proposal comes after years of his attacks on Big Oil, as he brands it. “They are the polluted heart of this climate crisis,” he charged last September when signing a series of bills restricting oil development. “They’ve been lying and deceiving us for decades and decades and decades. It’s finally, finally time to hold Big Oil accountable.”
Tough talk for a governor who has overseen escalating energy prices and made no meaningful impact on climate change.
Although prices nationally have been dropping in recent weeks, according to the Auto Club, California’s $4.49 average price for a gallon of regular remains 43% higher than the national average of $3.14. That will be a hard sell even to Democratic Party drivers in the primaries of 2028.
