Daily Business Report: Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Carlsbad company among those hit by Trump’s cuts to energy projects
By Anna Kramer, Manuela Silva and Amelia Benavides-Colón | NOTUS
The Trump administration is canceling about $8 billion in grants for energy projects in mostly Democratic-led states — but is allowing funding to continue for similar projects in states that voted for Trump.
The canceled grants, which were first announced last week by the Office of Management and Budget’s director, Russell Vought, don’t total anywhere close to all of the energy investments made by the Biden administration, which Vought called “Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.”
For now, energy project money appears to be continuing to flow to companies and institutions located in red and swing states, even though the work these institutions are doing is very similar to the work that was cut, according to a NOTUS analysis of hundreds of projects across the country, including the latest cancellations.
Potential Impact of Retail Gas Prices of the Chevron El Segundo Fire
By Michael Mische| California Globe
California is facing a gasoline crisis and the potential for significant price increases and worse, supply shortages. (Note: the primary reason why gasoline prices are lower than expected is due to the 19% decrease in the cost of crude oil under the Trump Administration.)
Chevron El Segundo accounts for approximately 280,000 of the 290,000 barrels of refining capacity per day. In terms of gallons, that’s 11.2 to 12.2 million gallons of petroleum products a day. Chevron’s El Segundo refinery provides around 20% of all gasoline supplies to California and 40% of jet fuel to Southern California airports, including military installations. It’s a major producer and essential supplier. Based on California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) data, in 2024, California consumed approximately 36.2 million gallons of gasoline per day and around 252,000 gallons per day of aviation jet fuel. Notably, of all fuel segments, jet fuel is the fastest-growing product category in California.
Complicating the impact of the Chevron fire is the issue of the announced refinery voluntary shutdowns. Two major refineries in California, Phillips 66 and Valero, are ceasing refining and gasoline production with almost immediate effect. And this is where it gets a bit more complex.
Trust in Media at New Low of 28% in U.S.
By Megan Brenan | Gallup
Americans’ confidence in the mass media has edged down to a new low, with just 28% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. This is down from 31% last year and 40% five years ago.
Meanwhile, seven in 10 U.S. adults now say they have “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%).
When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, by the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53%. Media trust remained just above 50% until it dropped to 44% in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since. The highest reading in the past decade was 45% in 2018, which came just two years after confidence had collapsed amid the divisive 2016 presidential campaign.
