Fresno faces high electricity and gas prices. A county supervisor has a solution | Opinion

Here in Fresno County, families are paying the highest electricity bills in the country. On top of that, California has the highest gas prices in the nation. These aren’t just statistics — they are real burdens on working people in our region who are already being stretched thin by rising costs.

We have the resources to change that situation. Fresno County has long been an energy-producing region, with Standard Oil — now Chevron — drilling its first well in Coalinga nearly 120 years ago.

Yet state policies have made it harder to keep that energy flowing. Oil production in Coalinga has dropped more than 50% since 2017 — not because the resource isn’t there, but because we’ve tied our own hands with regulations that discourage investment and drive energy producers out of California.

The same is true in Monterey County. Producers there were hit with a local ballot measure in 2016 that aimed to shut down production. That measure worked its way through the court system. However, uncertainty is pushing companies to put their focus and capital elsewhere.

That kills good-paying jobs and forces our state to rely on others for our energy needs.

Instead of importing over 60% of our oil from foreign countries that don’t share our environmental protections or labor standards, we should be producing it here, where we have strict regulations, reliable infrastructure and skilled workers ready to do the job right.

California now produces less than a quarter of the oil we use every day. That’s not progress. That’s policy failure.

One of the clearest signs of California’s self-inflicted energy exodus came when Chevron decided to move its corporate headquarters from San Ramon to Houston last year. Let that sink in. One of California’s longest-standing energy companies no longer sees this state as a place where it can grow. That should be a wake-up call for every policymaker in Sacramento.

Our energy strategy needs a reset. We should absolutely be pursing renewable energy, but doing so doesn’t require us to push away local oil and gas production that we still need. I’m proud to stand with the workers in the Central Valley, the engineers in the field and the small business owners who need affordable, reliable energy to grow.

This is about more than politics. It’s about protecting our way of life. It’s about making sure working families in Fresno County aren’t left in the dark or priced out of their daily commute. Let’s stop the exodus of local jobs and energy production. Let’s put California’s energy future back in California’s hands.

I’m asking Sacramento to stop vilifying our energy workers and start supporting them. The road to energy affordability, job growth, and economic security runs through the Central Valley — and it starts with a common-sense reset of our approach to energy.