Highest Gas Prices, New Tire Restrictions: Democrats Inflicting More Economic Pain on CA Residents

In March, Democrats in the California Senate Environmental Quality Committee, killed Senate Bill 1035 by Senator Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach), which would have provided immediate relief for California drivers at the gas pump by lowering the price of a gallon of gas by $1.08. SB 1035, the Gas Tax Relief Act, would have helped every driver in California. But Democrats just would not offer that lifeline to the state’s residents.

Senate Bill 1035 would have provided immediate cost relief to Californians by temporarily suspending The State gas tax, The Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), and The LCFS cap-and-trade compliance mechanism, totaling approximately $1.08 per gallon, and saving a typical household with two drivers $1,100 per year.

Gas prices today in California average $5.61 per gallon – highest in the nation and higher than even Hawaii. Lowering the price by $1.08 per gallon would take California’s average gas price down to $4.53 per gallon, and could save $21.60 per tank of gas. Even the reduction in price is still higher than the national average. But most people would gladly accept it.

Last week the California Energy Commission decided to implement a 20+ year old bill to pass new rules restricting tire sales in the state, that had never been fulfilled.

Assembly Bill 844 “directs the California Energy Commission to adopt a Replacement Tire Efficiency Program to ensure replacement tires for passenger cars and light-duty trucks sold in California are at least as energy-efficient as the tires sold as original equipment on new vehicles.”

No one thought that improving the state’s potholed roads and highways might accomplish more than their highly regulated tires….

Commissioner Nancy Skinner justified the decision by the California Energy Commission saying, “we regulate appliances, tires are kind of like that.” Nancy Skinner is the same lawmaker who tried to ban “Bullets, the very thing that make guns deadly,” she said in a hearing in 2013 I reported on. When she couldn’t ban guns, she tried to ban bullets. The same tactic with restricting she used for tire restrictions.

Within a day Senator Tony Strickland (R–Huntington Beach) demanded that the five members of the Energy Commission resign after passing the new tire mandate that will force struggling Californians to pay more.

Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton called for the removal of Nancy Skinner from the California Energy Commission (CEC), arguing that she is not qualified for the commission seat intended for an engineering or scientific expert. He also renewed his pledge to eliminate the CEC entirely as part of his broader effort to streamline state government and reduce bureaucratic waste.

You don’t have to be an economist to connect the dots – Sen. Strickland was fiercely trying to create some relief at the gas pump for families, and instead, Democrats killed his bill, and now continue to double down on costlier tire policies, with little regard for the people who have to pay the ever-increasing, unnecessary, outrageous prices.

California’s state taxes plus climate program costs have long been adding well over $1 per gallon relative to the national average.

California has the highest combined state gasoline taxes and fees in the United States, significantly above the national average.

California also imposes climate program costs that fuel suppliers pass through, which are not always counted in the pure “tax” rankings above but added to pump prices: