[guest post by JVW]

In other news, bored with chasing away aerospace jobs, California decides to drive out the oil industry too. Even the Dog Trainer can’t help but take notice:

With the announcement Friday that it was moving its headquarters from California to Texas, Chevron Corp. became perhaps one of the last dinosaurs to slip into the tar pit, a symbol of California’s monumental transition from a manufacturing and production state to the brave new world of services.

In the popular imagination, California has long been seen as Hollywood, sunshine and beaches that attracted millions of new residents and built its sprawling cities. But in reality the great magnet of growth for decades was the production of things: think the aerospace industry, petroleum and agriculture.

The transition away from manufacturing has been going on for decades, exemplified by Silicon Valley, which churns out the ideas for high-tech devices but leaves the actual production to others, overseas, and the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which offload the vast flow of manufactured goods from abroad.

Yes, because “services,” especially in non-tangible things like apps and social media, can’t just be made anywhere, right? Amazingly enough the reporter, 30-year LAT veteran Don Lee, gets this and he adds a very lightly-cloaked warning that perhaps this is not the economic nirvana that Gavin Newsom and the Tech Bros believe it is:

The transition away from manufacturing has been going on for decades, exemplified by Silicon Valley, which churns out the ideas for high-tech devices but leaves the actual production to others, overseas, and the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which offload the vast flow of manufactured goods from abroad.

And Mr. Lee is willing to interview an accademic who actually believes it might not be such a great thing for the state which once produced one-fifth of the world’s oil to suddenly shut down the wells:

The downshift reflects just how far the state has staked its fortunes away from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy and, in particular, away from gas-powered cars to become the center of the electric vehicle industry

“Oil and gas has shaped California into what it became, but it has been in a tremendous decline,” said Andreas Michael, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering at the University of North Dakota. Chevron’s move out of the state, he said, “is a milestone in that decline, and it’s very sad to see.”

But lest the reader get the impression that the state might be really remiss in chasing away such a key industry, the Dog Trainer comes back and finds another academic — one in the humanities, naturally — to declare that this might all be Chevron’s fault:

Sarah Elkind, a San Diego State University history professor who has chronicled the profound impact of oil production on people’s health and industry overall in Los Angeles, wondered out loud whether Chevron was leaving California to get away from regulatory scrutiny.

“It’s unfortunate corporations will relocate their workforces in places that have fewer environmental regulations rather than working in ways that lead to healthy and vibrant communities,” she said.

Sure Sarah, because what corporation wouldn’t want to pay the danegeld in order to operate in a state run by absolute nutcases, so many of whom have contempt for capitalism? And, again to his credit, Mr. Lee is willing to acknowledge this:

Recently Elon Musk said he is moving his companies SpaceX and X from California to Texas, and over the last decade there have been scores of other California companies in tech and other industries that have fled the state, with many attributing it to the state’s high operating costs and other policies that they see as not supportive of business.

Of course Greasy Governor Gavin’s office disagrees and outright dismisses Chevron’s relocating its headquarters (and 2,000 jobs) from San Ramon to Houston:

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office downplayed the significance of Chevron’s relocation news Friday and highlighted the growth and opportunities in clean energy for California, which it said already has six times more jobs than fossil fuels employment.

“This announcement is the logical culmination of a long process that has repeatedly been foreshadowed by Chevron,” said Alex Stack, a spokesman for the governor’s office. “We’re proud of California’s place as the leading creator of clean energy jobs — a critical part of our diverse, innovative and vibrant economy.”

And, as with Spain in the 1990s, pretty much every one of those “clean energy jobs” is heavily dependent upon subsidies from our dead-broke federal government. Way to think things through, Sacramento Democrats.

Back to someone who knows a thing or two about California oil and reminds us what could be, had the state not been captured by the Green Energy mob:

“And I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet,” said Uduak-Joe Ntuk, an industry expert who until this year oversaw oil fields for the California Department of Conservation’s energy management division. Los Angeles County alone still has thousands of oil wells. “We have billions of barrels of recoverable oil in California, but they’re just in the ground.”

Someday maybe we’ll come to our senses, but there’s going to be a pretty significant reckoning first.

– JVW