WSPA’s Catherine Reheis-Boyd— A VX News Exit Interview
As leaders, legislators, and regulators in California’s grapple with the supply-constraining and potentially cost increasing impacts of planned refinery closures and facing headwinds from the conflicting priorities of the current federal administration, VX News checked in with Catherine Reheis-Boyd, CEO and President of the Western States Petroleum Association for her assessment of the current moment and what it portends for the future of the oil and gas industry in the state. Reheis-Boyd, who is rewiring this year from WSPA after 35 years, 45 in the industry, in this exit interview, reflects on the necessity for collaborative, science-driven policymaking, shares excitement for innovation and evolution within the industry, and elaborates on her strategy for navigating the partisan policy arena of today.
“My position has always been that if we engage in an energy evolution…we must first understand how to move responsibly from where we are today to where we want to be.”
Cathy, you've been a valued voice at VerdeXchange for over a decade. You're departing from WSPA at the end of 2025 but rewiring for your next chapter, after 15 years as President and CEO of WSPA. Let's begin by reminding readers: What is WSPA? What's your mission, and who do you represent?
WSPA is the Western States Petroleum Association, and we've been around since 1907. I was not around in 1907, but the organization is the oldest trade association in the United States for oil and gas. We represent our members operations in five western states: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona.
We really represent those that either produce oil out of the ground and then transport it to a refinery to make gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel and other products, and then get it to market to the consumers for transportation fuels. So, we represent integrated companies that do both refining and production. Then, we represent members who are just refining or just production--so the whole breadth of the industry from beginning to end.
Our mission is to communicate, educate, and advocate on their behalf. Education is the biggest piece that I’m certainly involved in, and that can be either with the consumers themselves or the constituents, or the legislators of these five states. Then, of course, the administration, the governors, and all of the agencies under the governors of the five states. We are involved in all issues…environmental, technical, or regulatory—it doesn’t matter. If it has to do with fuels and transportation, we're probably front and center.
Well, you're exiting WSPA at an inflection point regarding energy policy – nationally, as well as in the Western States. Given you’ve long championed the ambition that progress depends on dialogue, not division, could you share, in the partisan policy arena of today, how this is accomplished?
One thing I like about VerdeXchange—and appreciate every year the offer to attend and participate, either myself or my leadership team—is that it truly does bring together people of very diverse views. I always live by “no one has the corner on wisdom,” so I don’t think you get to good policy unless you have a diversity of views.
You have to be active listeners, right? You’ve got to put yourself in other people’s shoes,
I don’t think you can make progress unless you are all at the table and having these important dialogs, because they’re all complex, and everybody has a different lens. I think you get the best answer when you balance all of those pieces. That’s always been something I’ve looked for in any organizations that I’ve participated in, and I think it leads to a better solution.
You can balance the economy and the environment, but if you get on any side of that pendulum and it’s not in the middle, I don’t think you make good policy. I think you’ve got to have both of them if you’re going to make strides. Looking back over history, you make the best strides on the environmental side when you have a strong economy. It should be policy over politics. It’s often not. It’s often politics over policy.
Navigating through that is very difficult, and we need people like those at VerdeXchange to cut through the politics, where the rubber meets the road.
Reflecting on your tenure, share some successes.
Some of the early ones were in the early days when you had the debates of transportation of emissions from the Bay Area down to the San Joaquin Valley. I remember them well: the Valley pointing fingers at the Bay Area, the Bay Area pointing fingers at the Valley, and then even within the Valley, people pointing fingers at each other.
This was one of the best partnerships I’ve ever seen dealing with emissions—it wasn’t just oil and gas, it was agriculture and everyone else. Everyone came together and we just put our swords down, we stayed out of our independent silos, and we asked, why don’t we let the science dictate the answer? Why don’t we bring the best scientists that we can find, and why don’t we partner with the state of California? The California Air Resources Board, all of the industries, and air districts need to figure out what’s going on here. What is happening? Where can we solve the problem? Maybe it’s a little of both--homegrown emissions and it’s transport—who knows?
We did that, and we found that we had to raise a lot of money to make that happen. Every year, the state, the businesses, environmental groups, and everybody came together. We went back to Washington, D.C., with a partnership on even the financial side. The state, businesses, and the federal government put in financial support and expertise to solve this problem. That was a really successful effort, and it drove a lot of the state implementation plan’s direction and emission control strategies of the Valley and the Bay Area. This is just one example of how everyone came together. It does take funding, though.
The other example I would highlight is from when Mike Chrisman served as California’s Resources Secretary. It centered on the complex challenge of managing the marine environment and establishing marine protected areas. We had a very diverse range of perspectives involved—commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, divers, community members and environmental groups focused on protecting these sensitive areas.
Despite the differences, the group came together with a shared understanding: let science lead the way. The process took eight years to establish a network of marine protected areas stretching from the Oregon border down to the Mexican border. Marine scientists and offshore ecosystem experts were brought in to design the protected zones along the entire coastline. It was deeply controversial and made more challenging by the wide range of stakeholders involved. Still, it was successful, largely due to strong funding from the state of California.
The initiative required extensive coordination: bringing all parties together, traveling the length of the state, forming a science advisory committee, and managing a complex stakeholder process. It was an elaborate and demanding undertaking, but ultimately a powerful example of what’s possible when science, funding, and long-term commitment align across a broad coalition of interests. There is always common ground to be found in anything worth doing. If we had a similar process with how we approach climate change, we would be much farther along.
Those are two that jump to mind, although one is a little tangential to the oil and gas industry. There are many more I can point to, but those are the ones that I still remember to this day of how successful they were because of how much commitment over a longer term to make it happen, and how much that commitment included financial support.
Let's address the present. What do you believe are the most underappreciated contributions and energy policy challenges now being addressed by the state's petroleum sector?
One of the more frustrating things is the substantial rhetoric out there about this industry. I've been representing them now for 35 years with WSPA, and over 40 in the industry. Every day, I get excited about the innovation among these members. There's nobody who's investing more in all of these technologies—whether it's hydrogen, renewable diesel, renewable natural gas, biofuels, wind, solar, traditional oil and gas—making it cleaner. But I don't think it's appreciated, not only what it takes to supply the fuel and natural gas to 40 million people, 365 days a year. It's a tall order.
It’s underappreciated, and then I don't think enough credit is due to the innovation happening, but I get very excited about it as I see what our members are doing, where they're going. These companies have 20-year business plans, right? They're not only looking at what they have to do today to meet consumer demand, but also at what they've got to do tomorrow—and ten years out.
One of the biggest challenges is having those conversations. I'm thankful that we're having them now, though I get a little frustrated that we're having them during a crisis. Although in California, we seem to manage in crisis. As we saw with rolling blackouts and the electricity crisis, everybody rallies to solve the problem. It would be much better if we had these conversations not in crisis.
Here we are with two refineries closing, and a similar crisis on our hands, and now everybody's come to the table to talk about it. I wish we could do that more pragmatically, logically, through something like the other two examples I gave. At the very least, I’m thankful that we’re finally having these conversations. We’ve spent a significant amount of time and resources analyzing the upcoming pinch points in California’s energy supply chain.
This work wasn’t done internally—Turner Mason is an expert in the field, and what they found has been substantiated by the California Energy Commission's consultants, ICF and Stillwater, The conclusion is clear: this is a real and urgent crisis. Our supply is extremely tight. We need more supply, more investment in infrastructure, and a cost structure that doesn’t make it impossible to be a viable business in the state.
My position has always been that if we engage in an energy evolution—or transition, or however you want to frame it—we must first understand how to move responsibly from where we are today to where we want to be. This isn't something that can happen overnight; it’s not like flipping a switch. We must continue supplying the fuel California relies on while also planning how to transition to what we view as an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
There is no opposition on our part to electric vehicles. Many of our member companies are deeply involved in EV-related research and development. However, the infrastructure and technology simply aren’t fully ready yet to serve as a complete replacement. That’s why it’s critical to maintain a reliable system while we develop and implement whatever the future will require. Fortunately, it seems more people are beginning to recognize that reality. Still, we now find ourselves scrambling to bridge the gap—to figure out how to transition effectively from where we are to where we need to go.
When you say, “we’re not ready yet for the transition,” as advocated by some in California, doesn’t that present a challenge for leadership, given public funding is being clawed back from IRA grants for the energy infrastructure needed to realize electrification’s promise?
Yeah, it's all a problem. Right now, we’re seeing a collision of several forces. Demand isn’t dropping at the pace that was expected. The growth of the EV market isn’t accelerating at the rate people envisioned. The funding to support this transition isn’t materializing reliably, and that combination makes everything more difficult.
What’s happening now is exactly what needs to happen. We have to step back and ask: What’s the reality? Where are we now, and how do we move forward? Technical realities can sometimes put a damper on aspirational goals, and if you don’t confront those realities, you’ve got a serious problem.
Hope is not a plan. Right now, we don’t have a solid plan. We have a climate plan, but what used to be an energy plan has essentially turned into a climate plan. The Energy Commission’s focus today is largely on electricity, which is very different from the days when we had the Integrated Energy Policy Report—the IEPR, as we used to call it. I’ve been through 10 of those over the years.
Getting back to a much more realistic conversation, and not just saying it because we’re in the oil and gas industry, it has to happen. We have 40 million people in the state who still demand that we provide them with what they want tomorrow. We’ve got to figure out the barriers, and what do we need to do to advance towards our goals. I think a lot of people and universities are now jumping in. We’ve been doing good work with Stanford, which has also shown that they’re very concerned about it. You’ve got USC jumping in on—“My God, if we don’t fix this, we’re going to have $10-a-gallon gasoline,” because the market’s tight.
I was here in the ‘90s when we had 20 refineries. Now we have nine, soon to be eight—and demand’s not gone down. The population has gone up—it’s a tight supply. Unfortunately for California, we don’t have any pipelines that bring fuel here. We’re an energy island. I think you’ve heard that term before.
You either bring it in by imports, or you make it here. That’s it. Two choices.
Let’s pivot. With California’s authority to regulate tailpipe emissions in jeopardy and given other conflicting priorities of the current federal administration, from your perspective, assess the current moment for energy policy and what it portends for the future of the oil and gas industry in the West—and for the future of CARB as well.
California has always been sort of insulated from the federal side. Not as much, perhaps, as in the past, but it has not stopped California from going forward on its fairly aggressive goals. I don’t see California backing off. What I do see is a much more pragmatic approach emerging because of some of the federal pressures. I think that’s healthy—that we’re coming to the table and having the conversations we should be having, because we are dealing with technical realities that can’t be ignored.
Think back to when we had the rolling blackouts. What did the governor do? He had to respond—because we were having real blackouts. But it was a workaround, right? I mean, all of the vessels that were plugged into the electric grid at port—so they wouldn’t be emitting—had to be unplugged. We moved past the waiver from winter gasoline to summer, because it was more affordable to make. We put Diablo Canyon back on track.
All of those things happened because we didn’t have a good electricity plan. And right now, we don’t have a good transportation plan either. We'd better figure one out—and fast—because we cannot afford to lose another refinery. These are decisions refineries are making as we speak. You can listen to any investor call, and when investors are supposedly putting capital into a company to stay in California, there’s not a lot of excitement about doing that. When there’s no capital investment going in, decisions get made.
I'll just give you one example, because it’s public knowledge. When Valero announced they were leaving the state in April of next year, their stock went up the next day. That tells you that this is a very sensitive, pivotal time for California. It will take everything we've got to figure out how to keep the rest of the refiners here while we're transitioning—and also not forget about crude oil production. We have the biggest strategic reserve in California: Kern County. If we don’t get that oil flowing to our refiners, we’re going to be in a dire situation. We’re already importing 70% of the crude oil we need. But this is all a conversation that can be had and fixed. We’re just now starting to have it.
The governor’s letter to Vice Chair Siva Gunda at the Energy Commission was pivotal. We haven’t seen a letter like that from the governor since in office. It recognized this is a crisis—and that we’ve got to figure out what to do.
For the first time, these agencies have been given a directive to figure it out. That’s why I’m here at UC Davis today. Tomorrow is one of our next substantial meetings on this topic; to look at how we’re going to deal with the current emergency crisis, what needs to be fixed in the statewide infrastructure in the mid- and long-term, and what the transition strategy is.
All three of those are now being talked about very seriously. I'm glad we’re having these conversations. I just wish they weren’t happening during a crisis. But like I said—we manage well in crisis, right?
With the emergence of the “mystery gasoline surcharge” debate and the creation of the Petroleum Market Oversight Office within the CEC, how do you respond to the claims that the oil industry is contributing to inflated fuel prices in California?
We put out what we call Facts per Gallon—it shows everything that goes into what the state or the feds collect.
If you take out the federal portion—to normalize it—you’re still above a dollar a gallon. I think it’s a dollar-twenty-something in there as what the state collects—for cap and trade, low carbon fuel standard, gas tax, and on and on.
The only reason we put that up there is to say: if you want to be transparent about the cost of gasoline at the pump, be transparent. However you look at it, it’s what the state collects that should be part of the conversation, but they don’t want to take part.
Now, we’re not saying that cap and trade and the low-carbon fuel standard aren’t meritorious. They are, but at a cost—and they’re part of the price at the pump. We think it should be acknowledged. That’s what that’s all about.
Concerning the mystery surcharge, nowhere on that pump diagram do we even include that it’s two to three times more expensive to run a refinery or a production facility in California. Labor, electricity, natural gas, all of the fees from the local air district—none of that is even summarized on the chart.
So, yes—it costs a lot of money to do business in California. Some of the legislators even said it themselves during the hearing last week. It seems odd to accuse these companies of price gouging while deciding to leave the state because it’s uneconomical to do business here. That, to me, kind of says it all.
Let's turn to tariffs. What's been the impact on the petroleum industry of current tariff threats and related trade uncertainties?
Mixed. I think for California, especially if the tariffs continue to be placed on crude oils that are needed to go to these refiners, that will make domestic California crude even more important, because it’s not subject to the tariffs. If you want to bring costs down, you certainly want to talk about increasing your ability to produce crude oil here in California so that these refiners don’t have to include a cost for the tariffs as they make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
That is strictly a function of the state. It’s not because we don’t have oil here, but because we cannot get new well permits to produce it, and we haven’t for two years, just because of politics. It has nothing to do with anything else.
You hear a lot of conversation right now about having the state issue new well permits—in Kern County specifically, which has done all of the CEQA requirements, all the mitigation requirements, so that the cost of crude oil, which is one of the biggest factors in the price at the pump, can kind of skirt around the tariff issues. For California, the rest of the tariff conversation is much more federal.
Regarding crude oil prices, what's the economic advantage of expanding drilling operations, given the current $60 price per barrel?
If you can produce oil in California—in our backyard—which, again, let’s remind everyone, is under the strictest environmental regulations in the world, then you don’t have to import it. It takes 40 days to get it here, and it’s going to cost more because now you have the transportation cost of putting it on a tanker, shipping it across the marine environment to the Ports of LA and Long Beach, and then getting it from there to refiners to make something out of it. And as a result you put more GHG emissions into the air.
It’s much easier to do that from Kern County. The pipelines exist. The infrastructure is there. The oil is there. Like I said, CEQA has been covered, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be getting new well permits in Kern County. Also, it results in more greenhouse gas emissions when you’re importing it from a faraway place. It makes no sense not to produce and refine in the state, from the crude oil here. It’s just less costly.
It’s about $1 per barrel to get San Joaquin Valley crude to refiners, compared to $4 to $6 a barrel, whether it’s coming from Canada or across the waterway. It’s more cost-effective, and it’s lower-emissions. I can’t think of a reason we wouldn’t be doing it.
Before closing, what’s your take on the promise of hydrogen and where realistically does hydrogen— especially green hydrogen in California—fit into the energy stack that WSPA’s been promoting for the Western States?
First of all, concerning hydrogen in general, all of our companies are excited about the possibility. I think the philosophy that you should just jump to green and skip over all the other colors of the rainbow, we don’t agree. We think hydrogen is a good alternative to look at in all areas, under all colors, as one of the solutions going forward.
Green hydrogen, of course, is exciting, and our members are invested in it. But from a cost standpoint, the question is: should you skip over other colors of hydrogen and everything else while you’re getting there?
Our answer is: no, you shouldn’t. You should do it all, and again, it goes into that kind of diversification and “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
Okay, last and easiest question. As you step into your next life’s chapter, what will you be doing? And assuming you will be leaving a note on your desk for your successor, share with us what that note might include.
I’ll stay in the energy space. We have a lot to do to move CA forward. I want to continue to help diverse views come together and solve the problems of today and tomorrow and into the future. I would love to be helpful on several Boards. But also explore other spaces. I have some personal interest in mentoring young women because I’ve put a lot of effort into that, certainly within WSPA, and starting the Women of WSPA initiative. Then I’ll also do some self-development. It’ll be diversified. I have too much energy for it to stop now. I’ve got some things in the works, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
For the note: A key point is active listening, because people have very different views, and they have expertise from the lenses that they bring to the table. Make sure to keep an open mind and to encompass all of those perspectives, as you solve the many problems California has to face. Some of that is with our members, but also with our consumers and constituents. Some of it is with groups like the VerdeXchange. But really—embrace it all—because we will need every bit of it to figure out how to get from where we are today to where the state wants to go.