A huge gasoline price hike is looming. Will the Democrats own it or backtrack? | Opinion
California Democrats have villainized gasoline price spikes at their political peril because the next big jolt may entirely be on them.
Next month the California Air Resources Board is scheduled to decide whether to change the state’s unique recipe for gasoline so that cars emit less carbon. But the cleaner-burning fuel would come at a cost. Estimates range between 47 and 85 cents a gallon.
Given how Californians use an estimated 12 billion gallons of gasoline annually, this is the equivalent of about $200 leaving your collective pockets to oil companies every second of every day.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been wanting the public’s rage about the cost of fuel directed entirely at “Big Oil” and the handful of refineries that keep the state running. But he and the air board are staring at a wicked problem. The battle against climate change, which Democrats fashion themselves as the champions, could cost Californians dearly at the pump. Something is about to give.
The topic all but spoiled a celebration by Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and leading legislative Democrats, who staged a special legislative session on gas prices but barely managed to pass legislation to require refineries to maintain higher inventories of fuels in hopes of avoiding those notorious price spikes during refinery shutdowns.
“This was a profound and consequential effort to reduce the cost for working people in California,” Newsom said at the time. “Everybody uses gas. I don’t want to get ripped off. You shouldn’t want to get ripped off.”
Meanwhile, CARB is doing some refining of its own. It is looking to mandate a more expensive recipe for gas through its long-standing Low Carbon Fuel Standard program. For now, Newsom staunchly defends this program, as he should. “It’s being replicated around the rest of the country and the world for a reason,” the governor told reporters last week.
CARB meticulously estimates the potential benefits of new blends of gasoline, everything from health benefits to the reduction in deaths due to cardiopulmonary illnesses. Its staff estimates that new fuel blend would eliminate hundreds of millions of metric tons of global-warming gases in the coming 22 years.
Will Newsom ultimately defend a hefty rise in California’s gas prices for doing our role in saving the planet? Or with Big Oil no longer solely to blame, is Big Newsom about to be in the crosshairs?
California Republicans smell blood.
GOP outrage
In a letter to CARB, 25 legislative Republicans are urging Chair Liane Randolph to delay a scheduled November vote on revising the fuel standard.
It was more than a year ago, in September 2023, that CARB staff last estimated the cost of making California’s gasoline cleaner. Back then, it estimated a 47-a-gallon rise by 2025.
The lack of a fresh estimate is becoming a political problem for the independent 14-member CARB board, and by extension, the governor who appointed 12 of them.
Danny Cullenward, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and member of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, has estimated the cost of CARB’s proposal at upwards of 65 cents a gallon and considerably higher in future years. He has urged the state regulator to release more information prior to any decision.
“If CARB wants the public, through their elected representatives, to be supportive of new initiatives to protect the environment, CARB should be forthcoming with all information — so the public can consider the costs and benefits,” wrote the 25 Republicans.
Pressed about CARB, Newsom came out squarely on the side of transparency.
“I’m for more transparency, absolutely,” he said. “I think more is better.”
A test of resolve
Here is where the Democrats’ attempt to side with the price-challenged California consumer gets put to an important test.
To the pocketbook, it doesn’t matter if the price of gasoline goes up because of oil company executives or Sacramento-based regulators. Money is money.
That’s why Californians need to hear some straight talk from leaders on both sides of the aisle. Ignoring climate change in the long run is the most expensive alternative for the consumer. Is there some cheaper and equally effective strategy that Democrats or Republicans actually have other than what CARB is proposing for cleaner fuels?
Climate change is real.
And changing our emitting ways — whether it is by buying cleaner gas or an electric car or avoiding vehicles altogether — is imperative. Candor is the only way a wary public will support necessary progress.
The attempt by Democrats to blame everything on oil companies won’t work. Democrats run the state. They own, one way or another, a proposed gas spike of historic proportions.
This story was originally published October 25, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "A huge gasoline price hike is looming. Will the Democrats own it or backtrack? | Opinion."