In recent surveys reported by Politico, nearly half of Californians identified the state’s 60-cent gas tax as contributing to the roughly $1.30-per-gallon differential between California’s gas prices and the national average.
The next-most-popular culprit, though, was unproven price-gouging by oil companies. A narrative that Newsom has pushed, even going so far as to sign a law last year to investigate their role inflated prices.
A quarter of respondents named California’s mandatory gasoline blend as another factor driving prices, and just 7 percent identified the state’s cap-and-trade and low-carbon fuel standard emissions trading programs.
Voters associate the high cost of gas with these sort of atmospheric conditions in California, ‘Oil companies are greedy,’ right? ‘California is an expensive place to do business’ … it has a lot less to do with these very specific, niche things like the cap-and-trade system.” said Evan Roth Smith, one of the pollsters. The poll was conducted of 665 registered voters in California.
California is no stranger to these types of gas prices, and Newsom no stranger to pretend to do something about them when prices are at the worst. Newsom also made a big display in blaming refineries back in 2022 when we say prices go as high as $6.22 a gallon at the pump. Which is also when the state created a private watchdog group to address things like possible market manipulation. Yet, the investigation is ongoing, and “we haven’t seen any evidence of [price gouging] yet,” said Shon Hiatt, an associate professor of business at the University of Southern California focused on the energy industry.
The universal feeling in voters minds, however, is that we are all getting ripped off, we just don’t really understand by who. And our elected officials and their plans to appease us haven’t really worked at all. But all they need to do is make it through the toughest months of the year, and as voters, we may have short memories as we move on to the next thing we need to worry about in our lives. So all Newsom seems to need to do keep to a marketing strategy that pushes the blame from him and his administration onto some other shady group – like refineries themselves.
Hiatt said voters polled were mostly correct in their assessment of what causes higher gas prices in California. So Newsom’s messaging is not completely successful, but it is enough to cause some doubt.
Besides state and local taxes and a cleaner gasoline blend, the state is in fact a fuel island, where the small number of refineries have more power to set their own prices and influence the cost of gas by going offline, said Hiatt.
But he said the issue of price gouging still remains a question mark. “When you’re dealing with only fuel made here, and there’s not as much competition with that fuel, I could see the prices just kind of inch forward, but that’s not necessarily what I call price gouging,” said Hiatt. “[The governor’s office] is very effective in their messaging.”
Western States Petroleum Association spokesperson Kevin Slagle agreed that Newsom’s messaging has been effective. “It’s no surprise that people use the words of the governor to repeat back to the pollsters what they think is causing it,” he said, while noting that 65 percent of poll respondents did not say price gouging was a top factor.
It is hard to disagree though, that this year is difficult for people in California and all over the country, as most all of us have seen grocery prices go up, fuel go up, electricity go up, and mortgages rise. Things are a bit tough this year, and politicians in all corners are struggling to get their hands around the issues.
