California’s gas prices have long been high, and spikes due to the war with Iran have sparked debate over who’s to blame. Some Democrats say Gov. Gavin Newsom could do more to ease prices.
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The nationwide increase in gas prices since the beginning of the war with Iran is hitting especially hard here in California. That’s because the increase is stacked on top of what already are the nation’s highest prices at the pump. The price spike has led to a new round of recriminations between the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Trump administration. And not all Democrats in the Golden State are lining up behind Newsom. From member station KQED, Guy Marzorati reports.
GUY MARZORATI, BYLINE: Kern Rikhi pulled into a Chevron in San Jose Tuesday in his brand-new Mercedes SUV.
KERN RIKHI: That I was a super juiced about.
MARZORATI: Until he saw the price of gas at $6 a gallon and 6.39 for the premium gas he was buying.
RIKHI: I didn’t think about this last week when I was buying this car.
MARZORATI: Randall Raras says he has to drive to work. So he’s trying to limit his spending elsewhere.
RANDALL RARAS: It’s actually making me, like, be more conscious on where I need to go more.
MARZORATI: And who does he hold responsible for the high price of gas?
RARAS: I mean, it’s Trump. Yeah, I got to say it, but it starts from the top.
MARZORATI: California Governor Gavin Newsom is also laying the blame for gas prices squarely at the feet of President Trump and the war in Iran, the latest in his ongoing criticism of the president.
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GAVIN NEWSOM: We’ve seen gas prices spike because of his decision. Cause and effect.
MARZORATI: But gas prices in California, currently averaging $5 1/2 a gallon per AAA, have long been among the highest in the nation. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told NBC’s “Meet The Press” he’s ordering the resumption of offshore oil flows along the California coast.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “MEET THE PRESS”)
CHRIS WRIGHT: California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state.
MARZORATI: This week, a Texas oil company announced it’s resuming flows through a controversial California pipeline in response.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “MEET THE PRESS”)
WRIGHT: We said enough is enough, and we’ve got new oil production coming on in California.
MARZORATI: But UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein says producing more oil…
SEVERIN BORENSTEIN: Is not a protection against an increase in gasoline prices when the world price of crude goes up.
MARZORATI: After all, the U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum. Yet that hasn’t been enough to stop a nationwide price spike as supply from the Middle East has bottled up.
BORENSTEIN: Whether you’re selling oil in California or Texas, you charge a higher price when supply is restricted.
MARZORATI: Some Democrats here have turned their attention to California’s signature climate program, called Cap-and-Invest, which charges carbon polluters like oil refineries, adding about 25 cents a gallon to the cost of gas. More than a dozen Democrats in the state legislature who voted to make the program stricter are now calling on the Newsom administration to, quote, “reconsider” its implementation of the law. That call spilled over into California’s wide-open governor’s race, where it was echoed by two Democrats running to succeed Newsom, including San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
MATT MAHAN: In a state that says it cares about working people and a party that says it cares about working people, we ought to show it.
MARZORATI: Mahan is also calling on the state to suspend its 61-cent-a-gallon gas tax.
MAHAN: To provide relief to people who are having to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table and filling up their card to get to work.
MARZORATI: Meredith Fowlie with the Energy Institute at Haas acknowledges California leaders need to be concerned about affordability.
MEREDITH FOWLIE: I completely agree. But some of those cost impacts are generating revenues that are being used for other purposes.
MARZORATI: The state’s gas tax, for example, funds road repair. And Cap-and-Invest is designed to fight climate change and raise billions of dollars every year, which go…
FOWLIE: To investments we need to make from wildfire risk mitigation to public transportation.
MARZORATI: It’s a trade-off Californians themselves are grappling with. Polling last year from the Public Policy Institute of California found a majority of residents support the state’s ambitious climate goals and also feel gas prices are a major problem for them. For NPR news, I’m Guy Marzorati in San Jose, California.
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