Feature: Washington Landed in Santa Barbara to Make Our Argument

On Friday, two members of the President's cabinet stepped off a helicopter into a field in the Santa Barbara hills, toured Sable Offshore's processing facility, and said out loud what Californians have been paying to learn for four years.

"Everybody needs to know in California the reason you're paying more for gasoline than anybody else in the world," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, standing in front of Sable's tanks while dozens of oil workers watched. "It's because of the state policies. It's not because of some war overseas."

Read that line twice, because it is the whole fight in one sentence.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright put the contrast more bluntly: "President Trump's about energy addition and energy dominance. California is about energy subtraction and energy submission." Newsom's office fired back that gas is up nationwide and tied it to the President's confrontation with Iran — "no number of taxpayer-funded trips for photo ops on oil platforms can distract from that fact," spokesperson Anthony Martinez said.

Here is the problem with that rebuttal: this week's prices prove Burgum's point, not Newsom's.

California's average for regular fell about 11 cents to $5.95. That relief is real, and it is welcome. But look at why it happened. Crude slipped back below $100 a barrel as the Iran conflict cooled and traders bet the Strait of Hormuz would stay shut into summer rather than escalate further. The pump followed the barrel down. Sacramento did not pass a bill, approve a permit, or land a tanker. A foreign war eased, and Californians got a few cents back. That is exactly the dependence Burgum was describing — when your supply is set 7,000 miles away, your gas price is hostage to other people's headlines.

And watch what the dip did not close. Because the national average fell faster — down roughly 18 cents to about $4.20 — the gap between what Californians pay and what the rest of the country pays didn't shrink. It widened, to about $1.75 a gallon. The relief that came from abroad helped everyone else more than it helped us, because our problem isn't the barrel. It's the policy stacked on top of the barrel.

Which brings us to the one number Sacramento does control. On July 1, California's gas tax — already the highest in the nation — rises again, by 2.2 cents to 63.4 cents a gallon. Diesel goes up too. The state takes credit for relief it did not cause and authors the increase it did.

Burgum named the rest from memory: "There used to be 40 refineries in California. Then it was eight, then seven, then six." California now imports the majority of its crude, and as of February the single largest foreign supplier was Iraq.

You do not have to like the messengers. The cabinet showed up in custom work shirts and flew out the same afternoon, and the photo op was the point. But the argument they made standing in that field is the argument this newsletter has made with data every week: the only thing that lowers the price of fuel is more fuel. This week, Washington said it on California soil. Sacramento answered with a press release — and a tax hike three weeks out.

Sources: POLITICO, California Globe, Sacramento Bee, AAA / Contra Costa News

Trump's top oil deputies descend on Santa Barbara to target Newsom — POLITICO
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Sable Offshore CEO Jim Flores held a press conference Friday in front of Sable's oil-processing facility, framing California's high prices as a policy choice rather than a casualty of the Iran war. Beyond the staging, the appearance was a signal: the federal government intends to keep Santa Barbara crude flowing over the state's objection, and to make California's energy costs a national talking point.

California gas tax rises again July 1 — to 63.4 cents a gallon — Sacramento Bee
The state's gasoline excise tax, already the nation's highest, increases 2.2 cents on July 1 under the 2017 law that indexes it to inflation; diesel rises 1.6 cents to 48.2 cents. Governor Newsom continues to oppose a gas-tax holiday even as the statewide average sits near $6. It is the clearest example of a cost lever entirely within California's control moving in the wrong direction.

Fitch expects Brent at $100–$110 through June and July as Hormuz stays closed — Crypto Briefing / Fitch Ratings
Fitch projects Brent crude will hold between $100 and $110 a barrel for the next two months while the Strait of Hormuz remains shut, and Citi has warned of $150 oil if the disruption persists. For a state that imports roughly three of every four barrels it refines, those forecasts are not background noise — they are the ceiling on how far California's pump prices can fall.

Gas prices likely to stay high for months, energy experts warn — CBS News
GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan cautioned that normalization will be "a very long, multi-month to multi-year process," even with crude back under $100. The relief drivers are seeing now is a pause in a high-price era, not the end of one — and the summer driving season is still ahead.

Oil retreats toward $90 as Iran tensions cool and Hormuz reopening looks unlikely soon — TradingKey
WTI briefly fell toward $90 on Monday as the immediate threat of escalation eased, even as analysts concluded the strait is unlikely to fully reopen in June. The split explains this week's prices: the war premium softened, but the underlying blockage that keeps barrels off the water hasn't moved.

Week of June 9, 2026 — Source: AAA, EIA

California's average for regular fell about 11 cents this week to $5.95, dipping back under $6 for the first time in weeks, while the national average dropped faster — roughly 18 cents to about $4.20, its second straight weekly decline. The driver was crude, not California: WTI settled near $96 midweek and slid toward $90 by Monday as the Iran conflict cooled and traders concluded the Strait of Hormuz won't fully reopen in June. Because the national average fell harder, the gap Californians pay over the rest of the country widened to about $1.75 a gallon. Keep two things in view. First, year-over-year the pain is still stark: California regular averaged $4.73 a year ago and $5.95 today — about $1.20 more per gallon. Second, the one price input Sacramento controls moves the wrong way in three weeks, when the state gas tax rises to 63.4 cents on July 1. AAA's Doug Johnson warned that with Hormuz still shut, "oil prices will likely not decrease dramatically as summertime gasoline demand climbs." (Diesel figures are EIA-directional estimates; CA diesel of ~$7.25 is from AAA's California average.)

Data: AAA / Contra Costa News, AAA Gas Prices, Sacramento Bee, EIA Weekly Retail

The import picture got an unusual narrator this week: a member of the President's cabinet, standing on California ground. Interior Secretary Burgum said California "imports 60% of their oil from foreign countries," called it "an absolute national security risk," and noted that the single largest foreign supplier in February 2026 was Iraq.

The framing is pointed, but the dependence is not in dispute. By the state's own accounting, California refines roughly 75% imported crude, with the foreign share climbing for years as in-state production declined and Alaska's contribution shrank. Stack February's top-supplier list against the rest of the supply chain and the exposure is total: foreign tankers under a Jones Act waiver that runs through mid-August, the first-ever cargo from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve routed to West Coast refineries earlier this month, and the most contested shipping lane on Earth still closed.

The contrast holds from last week into this one. In the same season the federal government is tapping an emergency reserve to keep California-bound tankers full, the state is in federal court trying to stop the domestic crude flowing through Sable's pipeline off its own coast — the very barrels two cabinet secretaries flew in to defend on Friday.

Sources: POLITICO, California Globe, CEC Oil Supply Sources, MARAD Waiver Report

The CA4ES Energy Brief is published weekly by Californians for Energy & Science, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Data-driven energy intelligence for Californians.

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