Gov. Newsom Selects Anti-Trust Lawyer Tai Milder As First Division of Petroleum Market Oversight Director

Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday that former antitrust prosecutor Tai Milder will lead the new Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, the new office created under the recently passed SBx1-2 “gas price gouging” law.

SBx1-2, authored by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), was introduced in December 2022, and was quickly championed by Governor Newsom in March, becoming a rare off-session bill. The bill targets oil companies for high gas prices due to “price gouging,” despite industry experts and governmental organizations such as the California Energy Commission (CEC) having found no evidence that gasoline retailers fixed prices or engaged in false advertising and that other factors, such as the Russian war in Ukraine and high Californian oil and gas taxes are in part to blame for the higher prices.

Specifically, SBx 1-2 was designed to put into place four major policies:

1. A new watchdog agency on the industry, the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, is to be set up within the CEC
2. Daily reports on the oil market and imports are now required, which will detect any price manipulation
3. All refineries are to report maintenance schedules in advance and unplanned maintenance ASAP, to help prevent gas spikes by offline refineries
4. Monthly reports will be required on refinery company profit margins for accountability purposes

In June, only a few months after being signed by Governor Newsom into law, the law became active. While the latter 3 parts were quickly set into motion, the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight was left without one major component – an inaugural head of the office. After months of going over candidates, Governor Newsom announced on Tuesday that he had picked Milder as Director.

Over the last decade, Milder has served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, a trial attorney, and as a Deputy Attorney General in the Antitrust Law Section at the California Department of Justice. Most recently, he was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, serving for about a year since being appointed in 2022.

“California is serious about holding Big Oil accountable,” said Newsom on Tuesday in a statement. “Tai Milder has an impressive record of going after companies that rip off consumers, and that’s exactly what he’ll be doing – serving as a watchdog over the oil and gas industry and protecting Californians.”

Milder also gave a short statement on Tuesday, noting that “I’m looking forward to leading the nation’s first independent oil and gas watchdog. Transparency and accountability are essential to protecting California consumers and those principles will guide the work of this division every day.”

Legal and petroleum experts on Tuesday told the Globe that while Milder was a “safe” choice by the Governor, his antitrust background would likely come into play.

“Milder is the type of person you want in the office if you don’t want to offend anyone,” explained an anonymous lawyer who has been a part of petroleum company lawsuits in the past, to the Globe on Tuesday. “Newsom didn’t pick a bulldog to overtly go after companies, but he also didn’t pick somebody with a background dealing with oil companies. He picked an anti-trust guy with federal and state experience. That means Newsom is going the more subtle way in trying to prove that these companies are involved in wrongdoing.”

“There’s nothing bad you can say about the guy except that he does his job competently. And I think that’s what Newsom is going for. He has gone after personality driven people and supporters of him in the past, and he knows that those kinds of personalities in an office like this wouldn’t work. You need cold hard facts, and it’s an uphill battle because most of the high gas price blame has been on the gas tax and agency after agency keeps saying that there has been no gouging. So Newsom needs someone serious to oversee the market and, as in all anti-trust suits, bring out as many facts as possible to prove your case. That’s what happened here.”

Milder is expected to start work soon. His pay for the job has been set at $199,740 a year.