A titan in the oil industry has had enough and is moving its coporate digs elsewhere.
Chevron, one of the largest oil companies in the U.S., announced Friday that it is moving its corporate headquarters out of California and will relocate the center of its operations to Houston, Texas after enduring years of what they called “adversarial” state policies.
The company’s sudden decision to leave California follows years of aggressive environmental policymaking from California Democrats that hurt Chevron’s business.
The company said the following in a press release.
“The company’s headquarters will move from San Ramon, California, to Houston, Texas. Chevron Chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, and Vice Chairman, Mark Nelson, will move to Houston before the end of 2024 to co-locate with other senior leaders and enable better collaboration and engagement with executives, employees, and business partners.”
California is considered to be on the leading edge of climate policy, according to Stateline. Apart from regulations on oil and gas production, the state has pushed aggressive electric vehicle and truck rules, pursued a climate lawsuit against Chevron and other oil giants alleging that they deliberately attempted to deceive the public on climate change and enacted a landmark corporate emissions disclosure requirement.
However, it seems like the situation escalated from a simmer to a rolling boil — forcing Chevron’s move.
Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told the Daily Caller News Foundation early this year that “For well over two decades now, politicians like Governor Newsom have hammered California’s conventional energy producers, both large and small, with excessive taxes, regulations, and threats of profit taking. Many companies have already moved out of the state, along with hundreds of thousands of residents as a result of these and other harmful policies … like a cap on profit margins, that hurt consumers by making conventional energy investments uneconomic. These types of policies have outsourced jobs to other states and increased California’s reliance on oil and electricity imports — all with little or no environmental benefit.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, some of Chevron’s senior leaders have wanted to move out of California for some time, but the company stayed put until Friday in large part because of its history in California and its existing assets in the state.