Last week, Chevron announced it is moving its global headquarters to oil-friendly Houston, Texas. The CEO of the second-largest U.S. oil company cited California’s unfriendly business climate and the state government’s open opposition to fossil fuels.
Last month, billionaire Elon Musk said he’ll move X and Space X to Texas.
Chuck DeVore, of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is himself a former California assemblyman. He says Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-dominated state government are “very hostile” to oil and natural gas.
“And what you’ve been seeing over the last couple of decades,” he advises, “is that production of oil and gas in California has been dropping off somewhat in response to this heavy government hand against the industry.”
DeVore served six years in the California State Assembly, where he was a member of the Budget Committee and vice chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.
DeVore recalls when Occidental Petroleum made a similar move from California approximately 10 years ago, when it moved its corporate Headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston. The regulations were so burdensome, he says, that Occidental split its corporate assets into a separate company in Texas and one that remained behind in California.
California, the most populous U.S. state, has approximately 39 million while Texas, a distance second, has a population of 30 million.
Despite its enormous population, California lost a congressional seat for the first time ever after the 2020 census.
