Wind Turbines, Coachella Valley, Palm,Springs, California. (Photo: Bill Perry/Shutterstock)
‘Green’ Regulations Could Be the End of the Road for California Drivers
This is not really about fuel; it’s about control
By Mike Garcia, July 16, 2025 12:11 pm
Remember the California dream? Golden sunshine, endless opportunity, and a car to take you there. For many, that dream now sputters to a halt at the gas station, with prices that feel like a punch to the gut. We’re told it’s a complex global issue and that greedy oil companies are at fault. Meanwhile, across most of the country the average gasoline prices have dropped to the lowest levels in roughly four years—suggesting that California’s far higher prices are self-inflicted. Indeed, a significant part of this pain is homegrown, a direct result of state policies like the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). And with recently implemented new rules, the already crushing burden on California families and businesses could send prices soaring towards an unthinkable eight dollars per gallon. This isn’t just about fuel; it’s about our ability to live and thrive.
At its core, the LCFS forces fuel producers to reduce the “carbon intensity” of their products or buy credits from those who do. If their products create “too much” carbon, they must buy “credits” from producers of lower-carbon alternatives. It sounds technical, but the outcome is simple: these costs are passed directly to the consumer every time they fill their tank. While government estimates suggest the LCFS currently adds around 10 cents per gallon, independent projections for the future are far more alarming. Some analyses, such as from the University of Pennsylvania, project the new LCFS rule could add up to $1.50 in additional cost per gallon of gas within the next 10 years. This isn’t just a line item; it’s a direct hit on family budgets, small businesses, and our state’s economic vitality, all in the name of a top-down mandate.
The worst part is that the LCFS ruling will come as a one-two punch. On July 1, California drivers faced yet another policy squeeze. That’s when the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) more stringent LCFS mandates officially began — and on the same day, the state’s excise tax on gasoline jumped from 59.6¢ to 61.2¢ per gallon. California families, brace yourselves.
Don’t think that some elected officials didn’t speak up, but unfortunately efforts to protect Californians from this July 1 surcharge were defeated. Senate Republicans introduced Senate Bill 2 to stop the price hike, but Democrats blocked it—despite warnings that the added costs would devastate family budgets and disproportionately affect the poor. With the tax increase and regulatory tightening coinciding, misguided Senators in Sacramento are committing political malpractice for drivers who can least afford it.
Proponents of the LCFS, including a spokesman from CARB, have downplayed its financial impact, suggesting it adds only a few cents to the price of gasoline. They call higher estimates “misinformation.” But math is real, and it doesn’t lie. Californians witnessing sky-high prices and independent projections forecasting cost increases have every right to be skeptical. These policies don’t exist in a vacuum; they compound other taxes and regulations that make California one of the most expensive places to fuel a vehicle. We must evaluate these programs not only by their stated intentions, but also by their real-world consequences on the people they are supposed to serve.
The LCFS is not really about fuel; it’s about control. It aims to make gas so expensive consumers will desperately pursue alternatives. What are these alternatives? Often, they are unreliable solar and wind energy, which currently provide less than 5% of world energy and only produce electricity, a fraction of our total energy needs. These sources are intermittent by nature and require massive mining operations for their materials and extensive land use, creating their own significant impacts on our surroundings. Labeling them “renewable” ignores the non-renewable resources consumed in their production and disposal. True progress comes from innovation and allowing all energy sources to compete on merit, not from government dictators that pick winners and losers. This is especially true when the “winners” can’t reliably power our lives or our economy.
The LCFS and its recent tightening are not just policy tweaks; they are a direct assault on the living standards of Californians. We are being asked to sacrifice our prosperity for an ideology that values an abstract notion of “green” over the concrete needs of people. It’s time to tell Sacramento that we reject this path. Demand an end to these costly mandates. Let’s champion policies that empower Californians, not impoverish them. The road to $8/gallon gas is paved with these kinds of regulations. It’s time to choose a different route, one that leads to a more prosperous future for all of us.
- California Farmers are Being Left Out to Dry - September 18, 2025
- Fueling Poverty, Not Progress: Why Extending Cap and Trade to 2045 Is a Bad Deal - August 1, 2025
- ‘Green’ Regulations Could Be the End of the Road for California Drivers - July 16, 2025
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It is always a few cents here and a few cents there but soon it adds up to thousands of dollars per year per person. The boiling frog analogy comes to mind.
Wake up people… cowardly and CORRUPT politicians like Gavin Newsom appoint their “progressive” friends to nameless bureaucratic “Boards” like CARB where they issue mandates that are in effect, laws and regulations that are passed on to the citizens. (Taxation without representation)
Let’s face it – the Democrats want everyone OUT of their single-family homes (See Pacific Palisades and Altadena rebuilding and prioritizing “all electric” rebuilds over gas appliances) and they want us out of our individual cars & trucks, either all-electric (centrally powered by utilities they control) or on “mass transit” in its many forms (bullet trains to nowhere, buses, etc.) or ideally, living in “15 minute cities” where one has to ride a bike or walk to wherever…
This is 100% about controlling every aspect of your life, wrapped up in feel-good virtue-signaling…
Oh, and Mr. Garcia was cheated out of his office by voter fraud and manipulation, too….
Excellent letter, thank you!
It’s called “ballot initiative.” Roll back gas taxes, cap and trade, onerous restrictions on refineries and crude extractors. Defang carb and all the rest of the bureaucracy by removing the ability to make law by fiat, that only the legislature makes law and individual polititians lie exposed to the public for what is done, no more hiding behind state agencies.
Also only “Clean” bills submitted to the legislature. In other words one Bill on one subject. They get a stuff through in the fine print. For instance A Bill about guns or abortion that has taxes or air quality as part of it. Folks vote on the front half without thought to the back half.
As long as the voting machines are in use demoncrats will continue to control California and this nonsense will continue. Paper ballots, hand counted, photo ID and California is saved.
Excellent and totally true comment. Thank you.
I was born in California over 78 years ago and am devastated to see what it has come to.
these tax regulations on our gasoline is nothing but money grabbing greed forcing lower income families single people and the elderly to pack up and Leave this over taxed state just like Noosence has done to San Francisco chased every big business right out of California hello our electrical grid is going to collapse due to demand.. then we will all be standing in the dark “FIRE THEN ALL PUT SOME HONEST YOUNG FACES TO UNTANGLE THIS HOLY NIGHT MARE THEY HAVE CREATED WE ARE ALL GOING TO PAY FOR THEIR GREED ,& STUPIDITY
Mike:
Just about 50 years ago, pundits agonized over the mandated introduction of unleaded gasoline. It was deemed unnecessary, too expensive, a boondoggle, it cost a few cents more – when regular leaded cost $0.38.9 cents per gallon. And leaded fuels were mandated to be eliminated – necessitating replacing our cars. My prized, beloved muscle-car would have to go.
Why?
Because tetraethyl lead was a key component – anti-knock – to giving engines power that didn’t destroy them. You can’t imagine the anguish people expressed. A 10% increase, all said it would bankrupt California.
What it did do was curtail, and eliminate, the lead-poisoning of our homes, grasslands, forests, streams, lakes, oceans. It contributed to the brilliant lead-orange photochemical smog that blanketed California’s air-basins, and contributed to respiratory irritation.
And on *top* of all this, onerous mandatory fuel-economy improvements were mandated, to reduce the pollution we spewed forth.
We survived all that. Andd more.
I remember when I first moved to California in 1980, the smog was so bad you couldn’t see the mountains through the brown air. Unhealthy air alerts were common on the news advising people to stay indoors. Today, those conditions are no longer present. The additional cost for a gallon of gas is a small price to pay for cleaner air, better health and a higher quality of life.
Exactly. Mike Garcia’s fear-mongering opinion piece is laughable for its barely veiled attempt at convincing us all to vote GOP and ditch any hope for a cleaner future. It’s just more from the taxation is theft crowd.
This article is highly manipulative and misleading. It’s choke full of trigger terms and expressions designed to generate an angry response. It stops short of using words like “cabal”, or “deep state”, or calling the current administración a “regime”, but still comes very close. It also fails to mention, unsurprisingly, the role played by the oil companies that are using this opportunity to hike the prices and profit from the situation. If the situation is so dire, why are oil companies reporting record profits? The entities manipulating the prices and creating the crisis are the oil companies, not the government.
I don’t believe there is price gouging by oil companies. I believe it’s Newsom and his regulatory carb that is gouging us. The governor of CA is Not for the quality of life, but for the control of us.
Mike, your parents immigrated here in the hopes that their children could have a better life. and here you are the worst kind of puppet there is. a first generation, or as your right wing overlords like to tell us, an awful heinous anchor baby. and on top of that you chose to volunteer, I thank you for your service, to defend this country so that your cult leader chump would repeatedly call you a sucker and a loser for making that choice to defend our nation. Have you no decency? you sir should be ashamed of yourself.
Too many Calufornia residents support liberal ill thought ideas. They should be out in the streets protesting. But no, they follow along like puppets. They get the government they deserve.
More crippling than gas, and affects a larger amount of people, is the cost of electricity in California.
Please write a story about the most expensive utilities monopolizing the entire state. The CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission), is essentially supporting the electric companies instead of regulating price hikes (they’re supposed to be looking out for the people, not the privately owned utilities). The Central Valley pays a surcharge for the fire destruction that occurs every year, due to lack of maintenance of power lines.
Far worse, is the fact that people only have one electric company per 1/3 of the state., and in the summer, rates are hiked even higher. This is why it’s (at least it was), illegal to have a monopoly over an industry.
When the Central Valley of California reaches its regular summer temps of upper 90’s to over 105 degrees for the entire months of June, July, August, and some of September, it feels like the electric company is doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into a room filled with gold coins.
how many times can government add fuel tax and say it for road repairs we have the worst highways we don’t have extreme weather like other states they just want more money to pad there wallets I have been driving since the 70’s it’s a joke on us
From reading this article I don’t think anyone cares or understands about Globle warning at all. I guess they will find out the hard way. It’s so true people are really getting dumber and dumber. It’s sad but very true.
I am too stupid to read past Globle warning. Whatever that is. You sir are correct and you made your point clear. What I find funny, is the fact people think they’re so smart when in fact they are not. Good luck with that.