The Patriot Post® · Gavin Gives 'Em Gas Pains

There are 50 states in the union, and only one of them — the distant island of Hawaii — has higher gas prices than California. That’s because while the Golden State is one of the nation’s major markets, its long-standing requirements for fighting smog in the Los Angeles Basin have necessitated a unique and more expensive gasoline blend.

How expensive? Prices of $6 to $7 a gallon for regular at California stations became commonplace over the spring and summer, and although the pump prices have moderated to a still-robust average of about $4.50 a gallon — roughly $1.25 higher than the national norm — California Governor Gavin Newsom is now laying the blame on oil companies for collecting “excess profits.”

Because profit seems to be a dirty word in California, Newsom is calling his state assembly into special session for the purpose of enacting a price-gouging penalty on oil companies. As The Wall Street Journal points out, the reason this toll is being couched as a “penalty” is simple: “Even though Democrats have a super-majority, moderates from lower-income areas are loath to vote for legislation that would raise gas prices, as Mr. Newsom’s tax would do.” Simply put: It takes a super-majority to enact a tax, but only a simple majority to assess a penalty.

Of course, as we all know, it’s not the oil companies who’ll pay extra — it’s California’s consumers.

Sure to oppose Newsom’s scheme will be California Republicans, including those who proposed giving California motorists a real break at the height of the price surge by suspending the state’s largest gas tax. Unlike other states, which gave their motorists a reprieve with a short-term suspension of their fuel taxes, California’s wildly statist Democrat majority didn’t budge. Yet they’ll be the first to fleece the oil companies with their price-gouging penalty — this despite the fact that a federal judge recently dismissed a claim that there was price fixing in the gasoline business.

California motorists will soon be faced with a least-bad choice: Either pay the piper as the oil companies try to claw back at least some of what state lawmakers considered excess profits, or buy an electric car that uses some of the most expensive electricity in the nation and isn’t supposed to be charged during convenient times. (In barely a decade’s time, that choice will be made for them thanks to yet another state mandate. But, as our Nate Jackson said, “fossil fuels don’t care what time it is.”)

Perhaps, though, there’s a third way. While Newsom and his Democrat allies have vilified the oil companies for years and demanded that Californians adapt to a “clean” and “green” future, political analyst Lewis M. Andrews writes about entities that have been going green for years: fossil-fuel energy companies. Yes, these very same companies have invested billions into technologies that threaten their core business. “What activists do not like to talk about,” writes Andrews, “is the ongoing development of many non-nuclear technologies that also promise to reduce atmospheric carbon, but without the regulatory bureaucracies, massive government subsidies, and huge land grabs.” Much of this research is being funded privately by the oil companies Newsom and his ilk love to hate.

The main point Andrews makes also shows how wrong the Newsom approach will be. “Were today’s environmental activists as single-mindedly dedicated to cleaner air as they like to claim,” he writes, “they would recognize that the first step to achieving a difficult task is trying to build a more constructive relationship with former adversaries. If nothing else, oil companies have the financial clout that enables them to risk the kinds of costly mistakes that are inevitable when trying to develop radically new energy sources.”

Rather than penalize these companies for doing business at a time of significant supply uncertainty, why not encourage more of the investment that they’re already making?

On second thought, never mind. For Newsom and his California harpies, the game is all about revenge for a perceived slight, and about maintaining the power to decide for everyone.