Picture this. A massive earthquake hits Southern California. The pipeline that carries fuel to Las Vegas goes dark. Within a week, gas stations run dry. Trucks stop rolling. Grocery store shelves empty out, and hospitals scramble for oxygen and pharmaceuticals.
That’s not a Hollywood movie. That’s the scenario keeping Nevada’s emergency management chief awake at night — and it was front and center at a recent “Fueling Nevada” webinar hosted by the Nevada Trucking Association and the Keystone Corporation.
The panel brought together three of the sharpest minds on the issue: Brett Compston, Nevada’s State Emergency Manager and Chair of the Governor’s Fuel Resiliency Committee; Catherine Reheis-Boyd, former CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association; and Paul Enos, CEO of the Nevada Trucking Association.
What they laid out was sobering.
“Any catastrophic California earthquake that severs the pipelines that run from west to east to Nevada will immediately result in an energy emergency here in the state of Nevada,” Compston said.
He should know. During the LA wildfires in January 2025, a power outage at a key pumping station almost did exactly that. Las Vegas nearly ran out of fuel.
This isn’t a distant hypothetical. It’s our reality.
Nevada’s Dangerous Dependence on California
Eighty-eight percent of Nevada’s fuel comes from California.
We have three pipelines serving the entire Silver State. Two run west to east from California — one to Reno, one to Las Vegas. A third brings some fuel up from Salt Lake City, but it only covers about 20% of Las Vegas’s needs. There’s no aviation fuel on that Utah line at all.
Meanwhile, California is bleeding refineries. From forty-three refineries in the 1980s, down to nine in 2025. And, now it’s only seven. Phillips 66 and Valero just closed. That’s 20% of California’s refining capacity, gone.
“By 2045, if this doesn’t change, we’ll be down to one,” warned Reheis-Boyd, who spent 40 years in the California energy industry before relocating to Northern Nevada. She knows the terrain better than almost anyone.
Why are refineries closing? The same story conservatives know well — punishing regulations, sky-high taxes, climate mandates, and endless local air quality rules.
Reheis-Boyd listed the issues:
“California is simply too costly. Taxes, fees, climate policies, land, air quality regulations from local districts… retrofits, punitive fines, on and on and on.”
One refiner sitting on the Fuel Resiliency Committee was asked what their single biggest challenge was. The answer: California’s new cap-and-invest program.
Why This Matters to Every Nevadan
Trucks move 95.3% of all freight in Nevada. We have no Mississippi River, no major ports, no sprawling rail network to transport goods. What keeps our grocery stores stocked, our gas stations pumping, and our hospitals running rides almost entirely on diesel that flows through two thin pipelines from a state that is hostile to the very industry we depend on.
Enos laid it out: if trucks stop for just three days, grocery store shelves go bare. Within 7 to 10 days, hospitals run out of oxygen supplies. In two to four weeks, water treatment chemicals run out, and drinking water becomes unsafe.
“Trucking is the most resilient and nimble link in the supply chain,” Enos said.
But trucks run on diesel — and diesel prices in Nevada are already running $6.12 to $6.37 a gallon. In California, it’s $7.50. Those costs get passed to shippers, and then to every one of us.
Trucking companies handle it through what are called fuel surcharges — contractual add-ons to freight bills that fluctuate with diesel prices. Right now, at least one major carrier is running a fuel surcharge of 60.5%. That means a $1,000 freight bill becomes $1,605.
Every product on every shelf in every Nevada store carries that cost somewhere in its price.
What’s Being Done
Governor Joe Lombardo has taken this seriously. He formed the Fuel Resiliency Committee and stacked it with real experts.
He’s written letters alongside Arizona’s governor, pushing back on California’s most damaging policies. He’s leaning into federal opportunities opened up by President Trump’s energy emergency declaration and the Defense Production Act.
The committee has a bold wish list. A new pipeline along the I-80 corridor from Salt Lake City to Reno. The Westgate pipeline project, which would bring fuel from the central United States into Southern Nevada. A strategic fuel reserve — possibly using existing salt caverns in Utah — that would extend Nevada’s fuel cushion from roughly one week to two or three weeks.
“Economics drives industrial investment in Nevada,” Compston said.
The state has to make itself attractive for pipeline builders willing to put billions in the ground here.
Enos summed up the moment well:
“We are very blessed to have Joe Lombardo as governor right now, who’s put this together, and bringing all these folks together, these experts. We haven’t seen anything like this in my 30 years.”
What Critics Say — And Why They’re Missing the Point
Some will argue the solution is simply to push faster toward electric vehicles and renewables.
But even in California, with the highest EV adoption in the nation, 93% of registered vehicles still run on internal combustion engines. Renewable diesel plants in California lost between $150 and $225 million last year.
The transition, if it happens at all, is generations away. In the meantime, Nevada has a fuel crisis hiding in plain sight.
What You Can Do
Contact your state legislators. Ask where they stand on the Fuel Resiliency Committee’s recommendations. Support pipeline investment.
Push back on California’s refinery-killing policies that treat our entire region as an afterthought. And pay attention to the 2027 legislative session, where several of these critical recommendations are expected to land.
The committee’s report will be released in late September or early October. When it arrives, Nevada’s leaders will face a simple choice — act now, or wait for a natural disaster to decide for them.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
