As California becomes a leader in climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is deviating from his own history as an environmental champion to defend the state’s struggling oil industry.
Villaraigosa’s work to expand mass transport, grow mass transport and reduce carbon emissions has made him a favorite of the environmental campaign, but the former state legislator also accepted more than $1 million in campaign contributions, as well as funding from oil companies and other donors associated with the industry for more than three decades in public life, a disclosure of city and state fundraising.
Villaraigosa has received more than $176,000 from donors linked to the oil industry since replacing Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, the disclosure shows, including a company that operates oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles County.
The conflict between Villaraigosa’s environmentalist qualifications and the oil industry ties surfaced in the governor’s game after Valero announced in late April that its Bay Area refinery would be closed next year, and soon after Phillips 66 said its Wilmington refinery would be closed in 2025.
Villaraigosa now warns that California drivers can see gasoline prices soaring, which he says could lead to refineries closures, which is a “ridiculous” policy.
“I’m not fighting for refineries,” Villaraigosa said in an interview. “I’m fighting for people who pay for gasoline in this state.”
The refinery is a painful location for Newsom and California Democrats, tying their environmental goals against concerns about rising cost of living and the focus of the state’s two strongest interest groups, organized labor and environmentalists.
Villaraigosa said Democrats make perfection an enemy of goodness in their attitude to combat climate change.
He said he hopes no more refineries will be able to close until the state reaches more electrification milestones, including the construction of more transmission lines, green energy storage systems and electric vehicle charging stations. He said the only way the state can achieve “zero net” emissions is a “full” approach that includes solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, nuclear power, and oil and gas.
“The idea that we won’t do that is Poppycock,” Villaraigosa said.
Villaraigosa’s voice support for the oil industry has upset some environmental groups that see him as a long-term ally.
“I’m shocked by how bad it is,” RL Miller, president of the Climate Hawks voting and chairman of the California Democratic Environmental Caucus, said that Villaraigosa has been receiving contributions since he entered the competition in July.
Miller said Villaraigosa signed a pledge during her unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2018 to not accept donations from “executive” campaigns from oil companies and fossil fuel entities. She said he made a commitment shortly after accepting the maximum allowable donations from several oil donors in 2017.
Miller said the over $100,000 donations received by Villaraigosa during this governor cycle were clearly in violation of commitments.
These include the state’s largest oil and gas producer, California Resources and its subsidiaries, as well as the founders of Rocky Mountain Resources, oil companies Berry Corp. and Excalibur Well Services.
“This has bothered the oil industry,” she said.
Environmental activists believe that commitment is binding on future campaigns. Villaraigosa said he has not participated in the sport yet.
Villaraigosa said the economy is very different from the economy in 2018, and working-class Americans are being hammered, which he said was a major factor in the recent loss of democracy.
“We are losing workers, especially those without a college education,” he said. “Why do we lose them? The cost of living, the cost of gasoline, the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries.”
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, said the statement was consistent with news from Villaraigosa in recent years.
“Villaraigosa is in a moderate lane in the governor’s race. This was doomed to fail in 2018, when voters wanted to offset President Trump and President Villararagosa’s defeat by Newsom,” Couser said. “But today, even some Democrats may want to offset the direction they are taking in Sacramento, especially in terms of cost of living and gasoline prices.”
He added that fossil fuel donations may not be the basis for Villaraigosa’s obvious support for oil and gas priorities.
“When politicians pay campaigns from an industry and take positions that favor it, this increases the likelihood of corruption and affects the money of the vote,” Kusser said. “But it is also possible that politicians solve the problem themselves, whose votes attract money but do not undermine in any way. Here, this may be the case, Villaraigosa has always maintained a fairly consistent position on the issue and has consistently attracted support for these positions because of these positions.”
Miller said that in the 2026 governor competition, including Governor Lieutenant Eleni Kunarakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, and former state controller Betty Yeho, director of public guidance, Tony Thurmond, signed a vow not to accept contributions to the interests of the oil industry.
Former California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck did not. (Cloobeck has never run for office before and has not been asked to sign.)
State and federal applications show that other governor candidates have also accepted donations from fossil fuels, although less than Villaraigosa.
Becerra accepted donations from Chevron and California Resources Corp., a former attorney general who ran for Attorney General. Atkins donated from Chevron, the West and the Chevron while running for the state legislature and the state Senate. Kounalakis contributed from executives at oil and mining companies while running for lieutenant of governor.
The campaign representatives of the two major Republican candidates in the game, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, said they welcomed donations from the oil industry.
Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental record, dating back to his first few years as an elected official in the California Parliament.
As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa sets new goals to reduce emissions from Los Angeles ports, end the use of coal-fired power plants, and transfer the city’s energy generation to solar, wind and geothermal sources.
He is the child of a woman who relies on subway buses, and he also branded himself as the “Mayor of Transportation”. Villaraigosa was the voice champion for sales tax increase in 2008, which provided the first funding for extending the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the West Side.
But, he said, Democrats in 2025 must realistically say that the closure of refineries and their goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could have a disproportionate impact on low-income residents who have already worked to achieve their livelihoods.
Villaraigosa’s comments highlighted the situation among Democrats on how to combat climate change without having to make California more expensive climate change or taking away high-paying jobs that don’t require a college education.
Lorena Gonzalez, a former state legislator who became the leader of the California Labor Federation in 2022, said that despite climate change as a real threat, the refinery was shut down.
“This is a threat to the work and life of these workers, and it is also a threat to the price of natural gas,” Gonzalez said.
She said California has not yet terminated its dependence on fossil fuels. If the state reduces its refining capacity, it will have to rely on exports from countries with environmental and labour protection measures, she said.
“Anyone running for governor must admit this,” Gonzalez said.
Villaraigosa said while unemployment of the unemployment of the Valero Bay Area refinery has worried him, his main focus is on the cost of gasoline and the family budget.
His comments were posted when California was ready to reunite with the Trump administration on its environmental policy.
The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to revoke a federal exemption that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission standards, including a rule that ultimately prohibits the sale of new gasoline-fueled cars in 2035. Villaraigosa condemned the vote but said efforts to resist climate change cannot come at the expense of working-class Americans.
President Trump also declared a national energy emergency, calling for increased fossil fuel production, elimination of environmental comments, and rapid tracking of potentially sensitive ecosystems and habitat projects. The Trump administration also targets California’s environmental standards.
Eastside native Villaraigosa began his career as a labor organizer before becoming mayor of Los Angeles and was promoted to state legislator. Villaraigosa, 72, has not served as an elected office for more than a decade. He ranked third in the 2018 governor primary.
Over the years, donors affiliated with the fossil fuel industry have contributed more than $1 million to Villaraigosa’s political movement and his nonprofit cause, including an after-school program, the city’s sports and entertainment committee, and providing programs in city parks on summer nights to reduce violence to reduce violence.
Working as a council member and mayor at Los Angeles City Hall, over $582,000 in his years at Los Angeles City Hall, has contributed and supported more than $582,000 in pet cause.
In 2008, billionaire oil and gas giant T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a city claim backed by Villaraigosa, a proposition that imposed a new tax on telephone and internet use.
Pickens donated because his company is fighting for commerce at the Los Angeles port, which is supervised by the mayor’s appointment and is trying to reduce emissions by replacing diesel-powered trucks with liquid natural gas refueled vehicles.
The remaining donations and other financial support went to Villaraigosa’s campaign accounts and subsidiary committee, who served in parliament and served two governors. These figures do not include donations to the Independent Expenditure Commission because candidates cannot legally participate in these efforts.
Villaraigosa said that while such voters disagree with the Republicans’ “practice, baby, drill” spirit, he slammed the Democratic attention to such matters and Trump’s issues, rather than kitchen tables.
“The price of everything we do is the support of the hardest, least hardest people, which is why many of them — even if we say Trump is a threat to democracy — they are yes, but what about my gasoline price, grocery price, egg cost?” he said.
Sacramento Times staffer Sandra McDonald contributed to the report.
