Gas prices, Sacramento, CA April 3, 2025. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
California’s High Gas Prices Climbing Over $5.00 Per Gallon – Again
California refiners have not engaged in widespread price gouging, profiteering, price manipulation
By Katy Grimes, April 3, 2025 1:57 pm
California’s average price for a gallon of gas today is $4.918; The national average cost for a gallon of gas is $3.260. In Texas that same gallon gas costs $2.87.
Where’s Gavin Newsom? He’s not commenting on this on his podcast?
Last month the Globe reported on a new study by USC Professor Michael Mische found that the factors which have contributed to California’s high gasoline prices over 50-years are self-imposed by state officials and politicians. It turns out that California is its own worst enemy.
In Sacramento, a gallon of gas will cost you:
$4.99 for regular, $5.20 for mid, $5.41 for premium, and $5.09 for diesel.
The highest gas prices in California are in Mono County at $5.85 per gallon, and Humboldt County at $5.74 per gallon.
Compare California’s gas prices with the national averages:
$3.26 for regular, $3.74 for mid, $4.09 for premium, and $3.64 for diesel.
A new study by USC Professor Michael Mische found that the factors which have contributed to California’s high gasoline prices over 50-years are self-imposed by state officials and politicians. It turns out that California is its own worst enemy, the Globe recently reported.
It is no secret that California is its own worst enemy. There have been articles exposing this for decades, and now we have 50 years of irrefutable data thanks to Professor Mische. Oil and gas and California refiners “have not engaged in widespread price gouging, profiteering, price manipulation, ‘unexplained residual prices’ or surcharges, magical or otherwise.”
However, Governor Gavin Newsom, who is currently preoccupied with his new vanity podcast, has never met with or talked with oil and gas industry officials in his 6 years as California’s governor.
There is no excuse for Newsom’s negligence of an industry which is an economic powerhouse in the state, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs, over $50 million in paychecks to workers, and billions in state, local and federal taxes.
The oil and gas industry contributes hundreds of billions of dollars to the state’s economy and Gavin Newsom won’t talk to them. Instead Newsom is regulating the viability out of California’s oil and gas industry.
While Newsom prioritizes climate change schemes at the expense of the oil and gas industry, The Western States Petroleum Association commissioned a timely report by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), which reveals the significant role oil and gas plays in California’s economy.
IAE found that across the state, the industry supports 536,770 jobs, generates $53 billion in labor income, and contributes $166 billion of economic activity to California’s Gross State Product (GSP). Additionally, it generates $47.9 billion in state and local taxes and $16.3 billion in federal taxes.
Professor Michael Mische concluded in his study on 30 to 50 years of data on California’s high gas prices are, by design, engineering or serendipitously, largely self-inflicted, and the result of directed policies and a litany of regulations, taxes, fees, and costs. The economic evidence is abundant; California refiners have not engaged in widespread price gouging, profiteering, price manipulation, “unexplained residual prices” or surcharges, magical or otherwise.
The Golden State’s gasoline price dilemma is the result of the complex interactions regulatory and political policies, and the subtleties of refinery operations and global crude oil prices and in-state centric supply and demand.
Be sure to read again:
New Study: ‘California’s High Gas Prices and Supply Dilemmas are Self-Inflicted’
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April 16, 2019 -
You can equate the high prices to the state budget. I feel like a revenue swap is coming somewhere in Newsoms next budget and the extra taxes and fees will be part of the swap. It reminds me of Wimpys phrase in Popeye, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Here we have Florida announcing an elimination its property taxes and it collects income through a 6% sales tax. I do not know how many ways the California state government taxes/jabs it residents.
Well you people in Commiefornia voted for it, so suck it up. No sympathy whatsoever from this quarter.
Just like the people who voted for Trump making everything unaffordable, no sympathy from me. Didn’t learn the first time.
This isn’t a trump issue Margaret. California gas is independent from Trump policies. Let alone things were already expensive before Trump took office. You can thank Biden or in reality Obama’s third term for their wasteful spending.
Gas prices have actually gone down in the rest of the nation because Trump ended the previous regime’s war on energy. Which is also a big component of why inflation for everything else was so bad. Also, as energy costs decrease, so do to the prices of most goods which will offset much of the increases these tariffs will create, if any. And honestly, we could all use weening ourselves off of China, a proto-fascist nation (as in actual, tyrannical fascism, not merely “mean tweets fascism”), and allowing them to build up their military and threaten the rest of the world.
Josey Wales ….. You are correct. The California legislature approved AB 32 Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006. There was a subsequent proposition in the next state election to overturn the legislation but 70% of the voters in California rejected it. AB 32 applied to over 70 different industries in California and gets more stringent every year.
100% the fault of democrat party anti-energy policies, along with the highest democrat taxes, regulations, fees, and regulations in the nation. California is economically suicidal.
When are the majority of Californians going to wake up and finally realize that it’s Gov. Gavin “Hair-gel Hitler” Newsom and the criminal Democrat thug mafia that controls the state who are causing their gas prices to be the highest in the country? They’d know if they would read California Globe!
When you have organization like CARB who can just raise the price of fuels on a whim, and that same organization effect shut down refineries slowly over the past 10-15 years. Then the wise folks of California decided it best to allow Sacramento to tax energy yearly.( I still doubt the vote was honest) Add to that a carbon tax. Hidden in the price of fuels. I’m sorry. I’m just ranting.nothings going to change. The votes are fixed. Oh, oh those folks in Sacramento will let an outsider in every now and then. But only to make the vote look legit. Nuff said. I’m on my phone
thank you for all of you who made sure the recall didn’t go through. we’ve had many chances to recall him and you’ll vote for another environmental freak again I know it or worse Kamala all I can say is if he wanted to lower the price of pgne and gas he can but he doesn’t care
I live in California and it’s very obvious that these Democrats are ripping us off right and left. PG&E is ripping us off our pretty boy Governor Newsom is ripping us off all to fill their pockets I wonder how much stock he has in PG&E. Show me a politician and I’ll show you a thief. I’ve heard that line ever since 1965 when I was old enough to listen to these people saying this stuff Politicians are all thieves and most of them are Democrats. hopefully in this next go around, people will open their eyes.! an elect a republican that can fix all this shit. That’s been going around here for years.!
The hole truth is the voters, and those billionaires in the SanDiago, Los Angeles and Burbank where Crooked Adam Shiff stays every now and then, which his principal home is in Maryland, put Gavin Newsom, And Adam Schiff have the pull to keep Gas prices high, every station has high gas tax on the gas you put into your car,In are home town we pay 8.375% sales tax. what is Adam Schiff or Gaven Newsom going to help people who pay high price for gas to travel to work ( nothing) but the stupidity of people who continue to vote for these jackasses who couldn’t care less about your living. only your money. Gov. Newsom on his stupid podcast is a joke, he doesn’t know a dam thing, he think maybe he will run for president, thats a joke.
he has not at one time try to bring down on cost
of living thats everything, he has put California in debt, has never tried to bring anything down.
there is no excuse for him to al least try to help the people of California instead the billionaire who fork over their Money to put people like him in office, and to make sure there investments in the Gas Stock never go down, instead he sits butt, doesn’t make sence on the podcast of his. time to wake up you democrates, we are going into a life of Commununism with the stupid protestors who want crimals knocking at your door to. when we want them remove from United States they go with their stupid home made signs hand off and let Mr. 13 stay, Gov. Newsom who let these Illegal into California, Now Newsom wants us to support them, Just heard 1.5 million of Illegals on Medicaid and what is Newson going to do about that, ok, gas price, Medicaid, grocerys, PGE, and many more items, the list is long, why isn’t he with every department seen where can I help instead sitting at the station he’s on. why are we paying him and the democrate legislature a salary. all they do is come up with some stupid bills they past.
how about seniors don’t have to pay property taxes if they have lived in their home for 50 years or more, that would be a start. or don’t run for office my opinion.
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