As a resident of this state, you have a right to decide whether the oil used to make our state gasoline or even the 6,000 petroleum-based products we use daily come from. Would we prefer it be produced locally, here in California, or imported from foreign countries thousands of miles away? 

California’s oil and natural gas industry employs over 55,000 people. Almost 40% of our employees only have a high school education, with an average pay of $123,000 annually. We also provide jobs and opportunities to formerly incarcerated. 

Today, 55,000 hardworking men and women got up and did the hard work so that we would get to work, power our homes, and allow our California economy to keep moving forward. 

This past month in Los Angeles, schools were shut down for a three-day strike. Union leaders said the shutdown was because “district support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 per year, and many live in poverty because of the low pay or limited work hours while struggling with inflation and the high cost of housing in LA County.” 

Yet, California elected officials and activists want to eliminate 55,000 middle-class jobs paying an average of $123,000 a year in favor of exporting those jobs by importing oil from foreign countries. 

Our oil and natural gas workers are union workers. Their families get healthcare coverage, retirement plans, paid sick time, time to care for loved ones, vacation pay, and many other benefits and labor protections. Will the governments of Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Iraq, Nigeria, or Angola take care of our California families or pay for the housing and support programs for our workers or donate the lost revenue to our local communities?