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MY VIEWPOINT - The American Dream was once perfected in California: perfect weather, stunning coastlines, fertile valleys that feed the nation, and cities that radiated opportunity. People didn't just visit; they moved here by the millions, chasing that golden promise of a new and better life. The brass ring of opportunity. Now they're leaving just as fast.
The exodus isn't random. California's decline was engineered through ideology so rigid, so anti-human, it turned one of Earth's most naturally blessed regions into a black box warning label for the rest of America.
Corruption spreads through every level, from procurement contracts to the Governor's mansion, through unelected commissions filled with activists, and to NGOs gorging on a firehose’s mighty stream of taxpayer dollars. These aren't stewards of the public good; they're zealots convinced that their beliefs justify making you the sacrificial lamb.
The consequences surround you. Infrastructure crumbles, and your tires hit pothole after pothole. Turning on the air conditioning seems like an unaffordable luxury due to electricity prices twice the national average. Sidewalks crack and heave. Encampments spread. Taxes rise. The basic feeling of safety has vanished from Los Angeles, replaced by constant vigilance against being victimized.
But the failure that will bring California to its knees—and soon—is energy policy.
California's anti-fossil fuel crusade is reaching its penultimate point. Phillips 66's LA-area refinery is shutting down now and will be closed by January 1, 2026. Valero's Benicia refinery in Northern California will close by April 2026. Together, they eliminate nearly 20% of the state's gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel output. Both companies cite the same reason: California’s regulatory climate has become too hard to navigate and too expensive to operate in.
Experts now warn that gasoline could reach $8 per gallon. With more regulations or a pipeline shutdown increasingly likely, prices might rise to $12 per gallon for gas and diesel. The state's war on cars, its crusade against mobility, will make daily life impossible for the very people politicians say they're protecting.
Here's the brutal truth: the loudest voices screaming about "equity" are erecting the biggest barriers to opportunity. You cannot uplift communities when they can't afford to get to work. You cannot preach inclusion while destroying transportation. You cannot demand diversity while building a state that only the wealthy can navigate.
And the alternatives? Limited train lines and Metro buses aren't solutions when they're inhabited by people with untreated mental illness, addicts, and enough lawlessness to make public transit nearly as dangerous as Russian roulette. The mass transportation system that the poor rely on is unsafe, unreliable, and unusable. Older people cannot use skateboards, scooters, or bike lanes, and these solutions create hazards of their own.
In Sacramento's worldview, abundant energy leads to a climate disaster. Prosperity is seen as a moral failure. Modern living demands atonement. Whatever your stance on anthropogenic climate change is, or if you understand the fact that climate has been changing for billions of years due to forces too large to control, cheap, abundant energy makes life better. Hot summers turn on the air, cold winters require getting that furnace going. Excess water in the wrong places build dikes, dams, and breakwaters. Forests burning at alarming rates, abundant energy provides the means for proper forest management and reducing wildfire risks.
The state's climate mandate isn't about balancing environmental needs with human welfare. It's about forcing 40 million people into a "transition" they never requested and cannot afford.
Gas-powered cars? Ban them. Diesel trucks? Regulate them into extinction. Natural gas? Forbid new hook-ups. Refineries? Shut them down and pretend demand will magically disappear. Electricity? Inflate prices with mandates for unreliable solar and wind energy until air conditioning becomes a luxury.
This isn't environmentalism. This is engineered impoverishment masquerading as moral virtue. Nothing California does will change global climate outcomes.
California now leads the nation in:
- Highest gasoline prices
- Fastest-growing energy poverty
- Worst affordability crisis
- Highest homelessness
- Most out-migration
- Most fragile electric grid
Sacramento calls these skyrocketing costs proof that the climate plan is "working." Of course, behavior changes when you're bankrupting half the state's population.
Politicians hinder domestic production, which follows the strictest environmental and labor standards in the world, and then replace those barrels with imported crude from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Ecuador, and Nigeria. The oil arrives on tankers burning bunker fuel, one of the dirtiest substances used in transportation. A single tanker emits more sulfur oxides in one voyage than thousands of diesel trucks combined. California has some of America’s largest oil reserves, yet we import 60% of its oil from abroad. Our top suppliers last year included Iraq.
California reduces local emissions by increasing global emissions. It pretends concern about pollution while outsourcing environmental damage to nations with weak regulations and zero transparency, like getting solar panels from China built by slave labor. We are just so enlightened.
Meanwhile, China and India build coal-fired power plants at a dizzying pace. California represents about 1% of global emissions. China and India together account for over 40% of global polluting discharges, and both are growing each year. Their pollution eventually crosses the Pacific, making all these job-killing regulations a futile effort. Nothing California does will change global climate outcomes, absolutely nothing.
Californians pay for this virtue signaling at the pump, at the electric meter, and through diminished living standards. What used to be a simple survival tool in California’s summers — air conditioning — is now treated like a high-end indulgence because electricity has become unaffordable. Our generating capacity is so crippled that we need to import electricity from other states. This trend will only get worse. Human progress requires abundant, affordable energy. California's policies actively sabotage that foundational principle.
Millions of workers commute long distances because the state destroyed affordable housing near job centers. Instead of fixing housing, Sacramento punishes commuting with fuel prices that devour paychecks. The zealots call this "behavior change." Working families call it an impossible choice.
Electrification mandates raise construction and retrofitting costs by tens of thousands of dollars in a state already suffering America's worst affordability crisis. Legislators claim they want to solve homelessness while passing policies that make housing less affordable, guaranteeing that less new housing will be constructed.
The Central Valley—the engine of America's food supply—is being crippled by exploding fuel costs, fertilizer inflation, water restrictions, and regulatory harassment. Family farms are being regulated out of existence. On 12/11/2025, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom demanding that California abandon a proposal that would redistribute agricultural land based on race, ethnicity, and national origin. This letter comes as the California Land Equity Task Force considers a draft proposal that would encourage and facilitate land transfers and financial assistance exclusively to certain minorities.
Politicians boast that California leads the AI revolution while pushing energy policies that make it impossible to build or operate data centers. Silicon Valley talks about shaping the future while Sacramento ensures that future gets built in Texas, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico.
You cannot electrify the future without plenty of electricity. We have known for a long time how to produce cheap, reliable, and abundant electricity. California's environmental extremists fail to understand this basic fact. These energy fascists believe that any incremental improvement to human life is immoral because, on some level, no matter how slight, it impacts nature.
California already has the nation's highest unemployment rate. Instead of creating jobs, it's raising energy prices to levels that worsen unemployment. Climate alarmism is a guaranteed poverty pact for California workers. This isn't a policy mistake. This is deliberate economic destruction.
High energy costs destroy marginal jobs first—and California has millions of them. Small businesses, agriculture, logistics, warehousing, restaurants, and transportation all operate on razor-thin margins. When fuel spikes 30-70%, they don't adapt. They cut hours, freeze hiring, lay off workers, move out of the bear state (too costly to bear), or shut down entirely.
Manufacturing, refining, trucking, and data centers—industries employing the working class—are fleeing because electricity and fuel have become unaffordable.
Then comes the knockout: commuting becomes unaffordable. With housing far from job centers, $8-$12 gasoline effectively prevents workers from reaching their jobs entirely. A job you cannot afford to drive to isn't really a job; it's an insult and a reminder of your helplessness and worthlessness. You cannot fill hospital staffing shortages when nurses spend $1,000 monthly on commuting. You cannot fill warehouse roles when workers lose money by driving to them. You cannot fill trade, construction, or hospitality jobs when workers literally cannot afford the commute.
High fuel prices become a wall between workers and opportunity, turning unemployment from a cycle into a permanent condition, one where the population will be completely beholden to the same politicians who destroyed their livelihoods for government handouts.
California's tax system relies on high earners, capital gains, consumer spending, and profitable businesses. Energy costs inhibit all four. A state already facing $10-20 billion in annual deficits now anticipates future shortfalls of $25-40 billion for years to come.
The cuts have already started. Medi-Cal expansions for undocumented adults are being walked back. Homelessness programs are being trimmed. Infrastructure projects are delayed or abandoned. Local governments are drowning in unfunded mandates. The climate crusade has destroyed the revenue base that funds the social programs it claims to protect.
High energy prices shrink the tax base, kill social programs, trap families in poverty, and expose the lie of "climate justice, because without economic justice, there is no justice." State, county, and city deficits will worsen. The tax base erodes. Borrowing capacity dries up. Credit rating agencies are slow but will sound the alarm soon enough.
The greatest cruelty of California's climate war is simple: it punishes the working class while insulating the elite. The wealthy can afford $12 gasoline. They can retrofit their homes. They can install solar panels and battery systems. They can buy electric vehicles and pay higher electricity rates without changing their lifestyle. Working families cannot.
The people who claim to champion equity have created a system where only the wealthy can succeed. They've turned California into exactly what they say they oppose: a place where your zip code determines your future, and opportunity depends on wealth. California is now where the American Dream and California Dreamin’ have gone to die.
These self-hating lunatics not only show contempt for themselves but also seek the global destruction of everything good, true, beautiful, and worthwhile since the Renaissance. Some say we're born with a death wish. California's social justice warriors and climate catastrophists definitely seem to have an active one.
(Eliot Cohen has served on the Neighborhood Council for 12 years, served on the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, is on the Board of Homeowners of Encino, and was the president of HOME for over seven years. Eliot retired after a 35-year career on Wall Street. Eliot is a critic of the stinking thinking of the bureaucrats and politicians that run the County, the State, and the City. Eliot and his wife divide their time between L.A. and Baja Norte, Mexico. Eliot is a featured writer for CityWatchLA.com.)
