Newsom imports dirty foreign petroleum rather than produce cleaner oil in California | Opinion

On Aug. 20, the people of Ecuador voted in a referendum to stop the extraction of crude oil within the Yasuni National Park in the Amazon rainforest. This national park is home to one of the most diverse biospheres in the world, including two of the world’s last uncontacted indigenous populations.

The extraction of oil in Ecuador, with virtually no environmental regulations on the industry, has had a profound impact on indigenous Indian tribes, with their jungle disappearing and water contaminated by unregulated discharges.

California consumers may not be aware that more than half of the oil produced in Ecuador is shipped to our state, which means we are paying for the Ecuadoran government to drill in the Yasuni National Park, as well as other sensitive areas in the Amazon jungle. We send billions of dollars a year to a country that is actively bulldozing down the Amazon rainforest while also releasing millions of metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by shipping that oil to California.

Gov. Newsom has made a deliberate decision to meet the current and future demand for oil with imports from countries like Ecuador, but also those like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which engage in human rights abuses and other policies at odds with our values. We currently import 75% of the oil we need from these countries, sending those governments $25 billion every year.

Much of the oil we import could be replaced by California’s in-state producers, providing local jobs, if the industry was allowed to expand production. The California producer operates under the most stringent environmental and regulatory rules in the world, but more than 1,000 permits for new wells are waiting to be approved by Newsom’s administration. As oil wells are retired, no new wells are brought online, which means over the last four years California has shut down 25% of our oil and gas production.

This only makes sense if you bury your head in the environmental sand and pretend that reality is something it is not. Today, and for the foreseeable future, Californians are consuming 1.8 million barrels of oil a day that we desperately need. This amount has barely fluctuated year after year, despite the governor’s push to transition away from oil. As our domestic supply has been reduced, our imports of oil have gone up.

Oil today is used for more than just the gas most Californians put in their cars. More than 6,000 everyday products are made from petroleum, such as shoes, phones, toothbrushes, eyeglasses, heart valves and disposable diapers. It takes 35 gallons of oil to make the tires on a Tesla, and even more to make the plastics, the wire insulation, and other car parts that require oil.

Why would we not want to spend that $25 billion, which we export, here in California? Currently, 55,000 jobs are directly connected to oil and gas, and the average annual salary in the oil industry is $123,000, nearly double the private sector average. Nearly 50% of the oil and gas production industry in the state is ethnically diverse, and 40% of all workers only have a high school degree or less. Women make up about 30% of the work force, and veterans make up 8% of the work force, compared to 4% statewide.

Yet Newsom’s policy is to send billions of dollars a year to countries like Ecuador, which do not reflect the values of California. Expanding production in the state would reduce foreign imports, generate thousands of high-paying jobs for Californians, improve our state’s energy security, all while operating under the world’s most stringent environmental standards.

I have introduced Senate Bill 15 to encourage legislators in Sacramento to ask themselves if they can continue to defend the state’s current energy policy. The bill would simply implore the Legislature to prohibit the import of crude oil into California if the source of the oil is a foreign nation with demonstrated human rights abuses, like Saudi Arabia, or, a foreign nation like Ecuador with environmental standards that are lower than those in California. SB 15 asks legislators if sending billions of dollars overseas to support governments that do not agree with them is consistent with their environmental and social values.

SB 15 is currently in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. I hope the bill will start a process to bring back to California the thousands of jobs that have been lost to foreign countries that do not share our democratic values or respect for the environment.

Sen. Shannon Grove represents California’s 12th Senate District which encompasses large portions of Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties. Follow her @ShannonGroveCA on Facebook , Twitter and

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