Californians Forced to Rely Upon Dirty Third-World Oil
This state possesses substantial oil resources and has for decades produced, refined, and distributed, much of the petroleum used by its residents. Yet, government policy at several levels has increasingly restricted the development of those domestic resources while Californians continue to consume large quantities of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other petroleum products.
The result is a growing contradiction: California is becoming increasingly dependent on oil produced elsewhere in the world, while simultaneously restricting its own ability to produce that oil.
The numbers are significant. In 2019 California crude supplied approximately 29.7% of crude oil received by California refineries. By 2025, that figure had fallen to only 22.9%, while foreign crude supplied 61.1%. During the first six months of 2026, California crude accounted for only about 25% of refinery receipts while foreign crude accounted for approximately 56%. The balance came from other sources
The foreign dependence comes from a wide variety of countries. In 2025, California imported crude from Brazil, Iraq, Guyana, Canada, Ecuador, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and the United Arab Emirates, among others. These supplies are, therefore, consequentially exposed to international conflicts, political instability, shipping disruptions, and decisions made by foreign governments.
At the same time, California’s own oil production has been declining for decades. Aging oil fields are certainly part of the explanation, but government restrictions permitting requirements, and litigation have also affected the ability to develop remaining resources. The state’s energy agencies are well aware of the resulting supply challenge. The California Energy Commission now routinely monitors petroleum supply, refinery capacity, imports, inventories, and reliability as part of its energy security planning.
But acknowledging a problem is not the same as solving it.
The recent action by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors illustrates the contradiction particularly well. While California is increasingly dependent upon imported oil, the county has moved to prohibit new on-shore oil drilling. Santa Barbara is not California’s largest oil-producing county, but the decision is significant because it represents another reduction in the state’s potential domestic supply at precisely the time when California’s own statistics demonstrate increasing reliance on foreign crude.
The distinction is important. Reducing demand for petroleum and restricting its domestic supply are not the same thing. California can pursue electric vehicles, renewable energy, and other alternatives, while maintaining sufficient domestic oil production and refining capacity to protect consumers during the transition. If petroleum demand declines more slowly than domestic production, however, the difference must be supplied from elsewhere.
That dependence creates risks California cannot control. California is geographically isolated from the major US refining centers on the Gulf Coast and the state already relies heavily upon marine shipments. The California Energy Commission has acknowledged that international disruptions can make petroleum supply difficult to forecast beyond relatively short periods.
The Fundamental Policy Question
The issue is therefore not whether California should eventually reduce its dependence on petroleum. The more immediate question is whether it is prudent to reduce California’s ability to produce and refine petroleum faster than Californians, realistically, reduce their need for it?
California’s energy policy should consider not only environmental objectives, but also energy security, affordability, and resilience. Domestic production provides a source of supply that California can influence and regulate itself. Foreign production does not.
The recent Santa Barbara’s County Decision makes the central contradiction difficult to ignore. California is recognizing that its dependence on outside oil is increasing while some of its governmental policies continue to restrict domestic production that could reduce that dependence.
A responsible energy transition should not require California to choose between environmental goals and energy security. It should pursue both: reducing petroleum consumption, while preserving enough domestic production, refining capacity, storage and transportation infrastructure, to protect Californians from foreign supply disruptions and sudden energy-price shocks.
Energy independence is not merely an economic issue. It is an element of energy security. California should be cautious about surrendering a domestic resource before dependable alternatives can fully replace it.
Derek and Barbara Hanley
Santa Barbara
The Death of San Roque
The 1,123 rental units proposed at La Cumbre Mall will be a seismic change to our San Roque neighborhood. Santa Barbara has never experienced this many units being developed in one place in its entire history. As a matter of fact there have been only a few projects of this size ever built from Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco. It’s insane these two projects are even being contemplated for our neighborhood with basically little or no resistance from our political leaders.
How you can build this many units in one location without impacting traffic on a congested State Street is beyond me. I know for a fact that the Hope School District is not in any way equipped for the sudden surge in enrollment from these two projects. The developers have rejected pleas from the Hope School superintendent to help defray the expense of serving these new students. The height and density of these projects are totally incompatible for Santa Barbara.
And if you think you are going to get more affordable units, think again.
Less than 10% of the units are affordable. Most importantly, these projects are totally incompatible with Santa Barbara’s iconic small town Spanish Mediterranean charm, which is the reason why so many of us want to live here. At some point we are going to wake up and realize Santa Barbara is no longer the place that so many of our past and current residents vigorously fought to maintain.
Candidates running for the council from this district have different views about these proposed projects. Baucke has said he will enthusiastically support these developments. Cathell opposes the massive size of these projects and has indicated she has major reservations with what is being proposed. I know we are dealing with state mandates forcing these projects on us, but that doesn’t mean our political leaders should do nothing or make it easy for these developers to build these projects.
At a minimum, we should use every tool at our disposal, including fighting this in the courts if we have to. We need to force these developers to reduce the number of units, the height of the buildings, and to comply with the strict design and visual guidelines that have been in place since the 1920s.
Unfortunately, our present representative and candidate for mayor, Eric Friedman, has been way too passive and accepting of these developments. Although he has “concerns,” he seems to be resigned to its eventual development.
I disagree with this approach.
We need someone to fight for the residents of this district to ensure that a few developers – who don’t live in the district –don’t ruin it for the people that do.
Lou Segal
Santa Barbara
250 Years of Freedom and Prosperity in Peril
This land, our beloved United States, is celebrating 250 years as the living example of what a nation of free people can achieve. Our soil has been nourished by the blood and lives of too many, willing to sacrifice that we might inherit a better life.
We were founded as a nation with a moral code, visible in the Ten Commandments honored by Jewish and Christian peoples, and a standard that should rule all honorable people with a foundation of strong families who respect others.
Yet somehow, within the beautiful garden we have nurtured, a vast patch of weeds has germinated. Our republic, dependent upon elections when educated citizens vote, has been corrupted by illegal, deceased, and fraudulent ballots.
Among the weeds are thistles with lovely yellow and purple blossoms which turn into sharp bristles, like the socialist promises of free healthcare, free food, and no need to labor, which end in poverty for all but the ruling class.
Also, we see the whole trans agenda, attempts to deny biological reality and destroy our children, forcing women to compete against biological men in sports and to share intimate spaces.
When our borders were open during the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency, we were overrun with people who don’t belong and have no respect for our values. Our hospitals, schools and housing are pushed beyond our capacity to care for our own.
Not least of our problems is a media – in print, on TV, and the Internet – that specialize in spreading propaganda and incendiary language. It has become challenging to find sources of truth, for indeed truth is a real thing.
Just listen to refugees from China, Cuba, and Venezuela, and those who survived Hitler or Stalin as they ravaged Europe. How slippery was the slope down from Socialism and Fascism to chaos and destruction. And they are both equally bad.
Nothing is free. Someone must pay. Those who have invented a product or provided a service that benefits all of us, deserve what they have earned. Where will we be if there is no longer incentive to create. That is why our nation (and, by the way, Israel) have been so successful. It takes freedom to think and create.
As we look forward to a nationwide election, it is important that we each try to discern the truth in all the chatter, and vote to preserve this great nation, still a beacon to all the earth.
Gretchen Kieding
Solvang
Community Calendar
Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com
The fundamental problem: reduce dependence on petroleum.
Considering petroleum is in everything from food storage, to phones, to clothing, to tires, to drugs.
Question. Why do EV owners get a discount in electricity so they can charge their EV overnight when CA burns coal?
Illusion, lies, fraud, misrepresentation, disinformation
I call it propaganda.
1,123 additional rental homes in The La Cumbre Plaza means a likely occupancy of at least 2,000 people, with an average of 1.5 cars per home. In addition, I understand that there are city plans to make upper State Street single lanes in both directions, so as to accommodate wider bike lanes.
On any day, the existing two traffic lanes on each side of upper State Street are very heavy with traffic in a road packed with commercial and retail businesses. We are about to see the second destruction of State Street by a feckless, socialist city government who have little idea of how to manage a municipality for the benefit of the city population who work and live there.
Would somebody explain how a four-lane already overcrowded; upper state street can accommodate the concentration of an additional 2,000 people and an additional 1,500 cars entering on State Street, when the capacity for cars and trucks is reduced by 50%. Don't tell me that the new 2,000 tenants won't use cars. Even if parking is not provided to accommodate them, San Roque, will just be jammed with parked cars from the new development.
This whole debacle is the result of top-down home building enforcement on local authorities by the goons in the central, socialist government of California - a bit like Moscow, really.
More recently this same top-down housing dictatorship forced local communities in China and Spain to significantly over-build housing in areas that did not need expansion, causing many homes to be unsold, and some only partially built, builders and developers to go bankrupt and the few potential buyers to lose their deposits.
If you want to have any effect on these decisions, the whole of San Roque and others, must take to the streets, pack city council meetings, oppose, oppose at every opportunity. Writing letters and news articles won't cut the mustard.