Chevron controls 19% of California’s gas market with more than 1,600 stations, making it the state’s largest branded gasoline retailer according to a joint report prepared in part by the California Energy Commission. The company operates two of the eleven remaining refineries in California, one in Richmond and one in El Segundo. The Richmond plant alone supported 3,830 jobs and contributed $1.1 billion to the local economy. These are real workers, real paychecks, and real tax dollars flowing into California’s public schools, roads, and services.
Zoom out to the broader oil and gas industry and the scale becomes harder to dismiss. A 2025 report by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation found California’s oil and gas industry supports 536,770 jobs statewide, generates $338 billion in economic activity, and contributes $47.9 billion in state and local tax revenue every year. Workers in the industry average $118,320 annually, 167% more than the average California construction worker. This is the industry Newsom decided to run a Memorial Day boycott campaign against.
Newsom’s boycott call hurts small businesses. Most Chevron-branded stations in California are independently owned and operated by franchise dealers, in many cases small business owners who built their livelihoods around the Chevron brand. “Attacking California’s small businesses like this is deeply unfair and irresponsible,” a Chevron spokesperson said. When Newsom said, “AVOID Chevron,” he was telling Californians to walk past their neighbor’s business.
Newsom can blame name brand gas stations all he wants, but that is not why gas costs so much in California. California drivers already pay nearly 72 cents per gallon in state taxes, the highest in the country, plus another 54 cents per gallon from cap-and-trade and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. That is over $1.25 in policy-driven costs baked into every gallon before Newsom’s 48-cent brand gap even enters the picture.
As PRI’s Kerry Jackson has noted, California has become an “energy island” where the only gasoline that can legally be sold here is made here, because the state’s boutique blend mandate makes its fuel incompatible with supply from anywhere else in the country. That island is at risk of shrinking further. Chevron has warned that Sacramento’s continued push for tougher energy regulations would “cripple the survivability” of the state’s remaining refineries and could drive the entire refining industry out of California.
Valero shut down its Benicia refinery earlier this year, absorbing a $1.1 billion loss on the way out. According to Chevron’s Q1 2026 newsroom report, California has already lost nearly 18% of its in-state refining capacity as a result of Sacramento’s adversarial policy environment. A press office call to “AVOID Chevron” does nothing to fix that policy problem or lower prices for California drivers.
Anthony Velasquez, MBA, is Pacific Research Institute’s Communications Specialist.
