Energy Social Media and Updates

California's Anti‑refinery Stance Threatens Pacific Military Fuel Security

I’ve been accused of being too soft on @SecWar. Fine. Problem is his performance has been exceptional. But here’s where I’m livid: no serious DoW pressure on Newsom and the California Coastal Commission which are both getting massive support from China. Oil is more important to the military than oxygen. We can’t even fight from space without fuel for our rockets. Shutting refineries right after Biden closed Hawaii’s strategic military fuel reserves is a deathblow to Pacific readiness. RIGHT NOW we are exporting crude to South Korea to refine gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to ship back to California. If Hormuz teaches us anything it MUST be that oil tankers are sitting ducks for drone and missiles. There is zero chance California, home to our most important Naval Base, will be able to receive shipments from South Korea in the event of war with China. If war broke out right now California would grind to a halt without these imports but our military could still function. With these new closures, our military would need serious rationing too. The DoW needs to drop the hammer on this ASAP or our refueling planes and fleet oilers will be stuck at home during the next war. And we need a lot more than 8 🇺🇸 tankers in the US Merchant Marine tanker security program and those tankers must have CWIS or other defensive systems or else Hawaii is screwed. As Hormuz is teaching us, foreign seafarers aboard supertankers simply refuse to follow Navy directives. Seizing ships doesn’t work either because, as we saw in Venezuela, operationally it’s easy to do but we don’t have enough US Merchant Mariners to sail them home. And Congress refuses to pass the SHIPs Act so there is zero chance of training more. The full force and weight of the DoW MUST be applied to this issue. @SecWar’s current grade on fuel and oil security in the Pacific is sadly an F. P.S. if you are liberal don’t dare tell me this is necessary to stop climate change. The Pacific is the largest ocean and oil tankers sailing to and from South Korea are emitting metric sh!ttons of CO2.