GOP gubernatorial hopeful Steve Hilton issues impassioned plea to California’s gas execs: ‘Do not give up’

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has issued an impassioned plea to the leaders of California’s oil and gas industry — urging them to “not give up” on the state.

The letter, sent Tuesday to the Golden State’s largest oil companies and trade groups, promises a sweeping overhaul of energy policy if the former Fox News host wins the governor’s race next year.

“Do not give up on California,” Hilton wrote to the industry leaders, including Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Valero and the California Independent Petroleum Association.

The letter — obtained by The Post — offers a blistering critique of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s energy agenda and California’s controversial cap-and-invest program, which critics argue is driving refineries and energy investment out of the state.

“California’s energy industry is under attack,” Hilton wrote. “For 16 years, one-party rule in Sacramento led by Gavin Newsom has targeted the very industry that helped build California’s prosperity.”

Hilton’s intervention comes as gasoline prices in California have surged above $5 a gallon statewide, the highest in the nation.

Some energy analysts have warned that prices could climb even higher — potentially approaching $8 a gallon — if refinery capacity continues shrinking and regulators move forward with a proposed overhaul of the state’s greenhouse-gas program.

Both Chevron and Marathon Oil sent letters to Newsom in the last week laying out a doomsday scenario if more refineries flee the state.

“The proposed regulation will cripple the survivability of the state’s remaining refineries, which will result in California losing the entire industry to this misguided program,” Chevron President Andy Walz wrote to Newsom.

An industry source told The Post that the governor’s office did not respond to Chevron’s letter. Newsom instead spent last week hawking his new book in stops across the country, including a weird moment with comedian Adam Friedland in which the governor needed help sounding “human.”

Under California’s cap-and-invest system, major polluters such as refineries, power plants and factories must buy allowances for each ton of carbon dioxide emitted.

Each year, fewer allowances are created, while companies can buy and sell allowances on a market designed to incentivize pollution reductions.

The California Air Resources Board is now considering changes to the program that could increase the cost of those permits.

Hilton said those policies are accelerating a broader collapse of California’s energy infrastructure.

“California once had 40 refineries,” he wrote. “Today we are down to seven.”

At the same time, he argued, the state has become increasingly dependent on imported crude oil. California refineries were responsible for 31.1% of supply in 2018 — the year before Newsom took office — but that number has steadily dropped, dipping as low as 22.9% in 2025. Meanwhile, foreign imports have increased from 57.5% in 2018 to 61.1% in 2025.

“Governor Newsom recently flew to the Amazon rainforest to lecture the world about climate virtue while, under his policies, California imports roughly half of the crude exported from that very region,” Hilton wrote. “That is not environmental leadership. It is political hypocrisy.”

Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor, pinned the blame of rising gas prices on President Trump’s war with Iran while also calling out Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, who sent Newsom a letter Monday warning of “real-world consequences” for California’s policies.

“Governor Lombardo and the oil industry are spending their time running a coordinated campaign to attack California, while Donald Trump’s reckless Iran war has already cost Americans $1.5 billion in gas costs just this week alone — prices are up an average of 56 cents nationwide, not just in California,” Martinez wrote in an email to The Post.

“If they’re serious about protecting consumers, they should direct that concern where it belongs: at Donald Trump. There’s no end in sight to Trump’s war taxing American families at the pump, and the silence from his allies is deafening.”

Hilton vowed that if elected governor he would move quickly to halt regulations he believes are driving up energy costs.

“My administration will move quickly to suspend or reverse these regulatory changes, appoint new leadership at the relevant agencies, and restore a common-sense approach to energy policy,” he wrote.

He also suggested his administration would take a far more aggressive approach to reshaping the agencies that regulate California’s energy sector, including the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission and the state oil regulator CalGEM.

“Where it is not possible through executive action alone to overturn regulation, you can be assured that I will do everything in my power to minimize harmful impacts through other means,” Hilton wrote, including changes in how enforcement is carried out.

But pressure on regulators is not only coming from Republicans.

Fifteen Democratic members of the state Assembly also sent a letter Monday urging the Air Resources Board to reconsider elements of its proposed cap-and-trade overhaul, warning the changes could destabilize California’s fuel markets.

“This crisis is not a fallacy nor a thinly veiled threat,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is a reality borne by consumers today, who are historically and empirically least able to afford it.”

State regulators say the program remains essential to California’s climate goals.

Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board, said the current proposal would actually cost $20 billion less than earlier versions studied last year and could deliver more than $180 billion in economic and health benefits.

The program is projected to generate $56 billion for utility ratepayers and $37 billion for climate investments, while reducing pollution linked to respiratory illness and other health problems.

Still, Hilton is betting energy companies — and voters — are ready for a dramatic shift.

“In nine months, when I am elected governor of California, the attacks on our energy industry will end,” he wrote.

“California should be the energy powerhouse of America, not a cautionary tale.”

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters