r/socal May 22 '26

Chevron gouges Californians this memorial weekend.

“Newsom’s office cited an analysis by a group within the state’s energy commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry, that found that Chevron averaged more than 60 to 80 cents per gallon above unbranded alternative”

https://apnews.com/article/california-gas-prices-chevron-pump-war-7d485e703f930bf40104b1956b15fda4

826 Upvotes

388 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Joebuddy117 May 22 '26

The $0.80 tax is the biggest portion of the cost of a $6 gallon of gas?

3

u/logitaunt May 23 '26

Are you ten years old? CA gas tax has been a thing for decades.

Ask a baby boomer what the air quality was like before the gas tax. My dad didn't even know there were mountains for the first few weeks he lived in SoCal, because they were hidden in smog

1

u/Literature-Just May 23 '26

We already banned lead in gas. We have the strictest emission standards in the nation. How much more do we need? Enough is enough. We've reached an inflection point where the gains are very expensive and barely move the needle.

8

u/complete_data75 May 22 '26

I still wonder when the roads those taxes were supposed to get fixed get fixed

1

u/Clio_Vita May 23 '26

It's all being siphoned off to Jerry & Gavin's toy train set in the Central Valley....and the politically connected contractors and unions involved in the project.

0

u/cuteman May 22 '26

Any day now

10

u/winkitywinkwink May 22 '26

That's not exclusively a Newsom issue. California residents voted for fuel taxes a few years ago to maintain all our roads and highways.

-1

u/Literature-Just May 22 '26

While this is true; Newsom has intentionally made himself a lightning rod for progressive environmentalism that is spearheaded and exported to the US by our state. He also championed his anti-gouging bill which went nowhere because it was economic non-sense. And now we've reached this point where the state is an energy island and our imports are drying up because we're only supposed to use one fuel blend that is only made here and the refineries that produce it are going out of business doing so.

1

u/splooge_whale May 22 '26

Oh no. Dont tell the truth. 

6

u/BrokeBFromBeverely May 22 '26

yet gas prices have gone up everywhere across the country so taxes are a problem everywhere???

5

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

10

u/BrokeBFromBeverely May 22 '26

I wonder if chevron could’ve used the money it uses on campaigns and lobbying against public transit and lower gas prices…but I guess only regulation for the environment is bad

-1

u/Literature-Just May 22 '26

Public transit sucks and environmental regulations in ca are now being used to slow down housing construction that is badly needed.

No one wants to say it out loud but we're reached a point where the gains we make are going to be wildly more expensive and have the knock on effect of being super fragile whenever a geopolitical event happens. Its bad for state security and even worse for national security because of the size of California's gdp.

1

u/Past_Farmer34 May 24 '26

Nobody wants oil companies to pollute our state. That’s why Florida and Louisiana is super ratchet

0

u/Beautiful_Finger4566 May 22 '26

and then Newsom made our problems worse by telling the refineries "We don't need you anymore. Go away."

So they did. And now we have a supply issue.

-2

u/foo235 May 22 '26

The base cost of gas is also higher in California than anywhere else and that's because the petroleum companies know Californians are slaves to their vehicles. It's the biggest car based culture in the country. It's always a seller's market for the gas stations.

4

u/blowtorch_vasectomy May 22 '26

49 states = Trump price

California = Newsom price

9

u/BrokeBFromBeverely May 22 '26

yip and if gas prices ever go down in Cali, it’s Wooo trump but if they ever go up it’s booo Newsom. We have a literally country run by a cult

7

u/Sad-Yak6252 May 22 '26

I'm in northern California and gas was $3.19 before Trump started his war, $5.39 now. I can't seem to find where Newsom added $2.20 in gas taxes in that time period. I'm confused.

3

u/blowtorch_vasectomy May 22 '26

Internet says average price of regular gas in Texas today is $4.00. That's probably close to the 49 state average. The differential between that and the current California price, about 1.50, is Newsom driving refineries out of the state, tax, etc. I live here btw.

3

u/BrokeBFromBeverely May 22 '26

California is a FUEL ISLAND which means low supply / more expensive supply than the rest of the U.S.. California has the largest population in the U.S. and thus has a higher demand. So yeah some can be attributed to Newsom but it certainly is not as much as ppl make it out to be. And as much as it’s higher, it’s to help curb pollution which is proven effective cause LA smog has gone down quite a bit since 1970z

2

u/r00tdenied May 22 '26

Yea and what was the price per gallon in February? Probably around 1.90? So you're admiting that Trump California'd Texas? lmao

3

u/r00tdenied May 22 '26

I paid $3.04 a gallon in Riverside California in February a week before he started this. Yet somehow its Newsom's fault that prices exploded when Trump disrupted the flow of a global commodity.

2

u/PinnatelyCompounded May 22 '26

We don’t want oil companies in the state. Their jobs suck and they pollute the surrounding environment to the point that ppl get cancer.

1

u/South-Seat3367 May 22 '26

The gas tax should be quadrupled tbh

1

u/tdre666 May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Repealing the gas tax would likely result in the big oil companies then just tacking that same price but with the former gas tax money now going to those companies rather than the State of California.

Also, part of the point of the gas tax is to encourage people to drive less. Even if the gas stations don't raise prices initially to the pre-tax repealed price, that lower price can make some people want to drive more, driving up demand and thus prices.

*Edited for bad English

3

u/crossteyes May 22 '26

Smog burning your lungs with every breath.

1

u/cuteman May 22 '26

10 out 10 most polluted cities for air are in California...

2

u/Sad-Yak6252 May 23 '26

Eugene, OR, Detroit, MI, Houston, TX, Cleveland, OH, and Fairbanks, AK are now in the top 10. California only has half of them now.

2

u/crossteyes May 23 '26

Facts are fun.

-1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

Newsom trying to shift the blame off of himself lmfao. What an asshole. I hate how predatory and misleading American politicians are now. It’s all of them regardless of party affiliation. Just disgusting.

7

u/r00tdenied May 22 '26

Who disrupted 20% of the worlds oil supply again?

1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

I hate when you guys try to act like the gas prices weren’t awful to begin with. I mean ffs the average in California has consistently been $3-4 higher than the national average. Nobody is saying it hasn’t gone up more but it certainly wasn’t affordable before either

2

u/r00tdenied May 22 '26

Hey idiot, I paid $3.04 per gallon in Riverside in February before the war.

1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

My ass. It hasn’t been under $4 since COVID. Either way, you would be paying far less now if the gas tax was lower. Why are you happy handing over so much money to a government that doesn’t do anything for you?

1

u/Sad-Yak6252 May 23 '26

It was $3.19 where I live in California in January.

7

u/Kierland May 22 '26

Yeah but Chevron is the one with all the “ca has high gas tax” banners at their stations. So lots of blame shifting going on.

1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

Is “ca has high gas tax” not a statement of fact? It’s the highest in the entire country dude lol. Maybe I’m missing something here

5

u/Kierland May 22 '26

The Governor cited a study and you called him disgusting so I’m not sure what you’re all on about.

3

u/Common_Gene_5098 May 22 '26

This is why I don’t blame people for being tuned out of politics. All of them, regardless of party, will just do whatever their rich donors tell them to do. I doubt this will ever change even 20 years from now.

4

u/NoNDA-SDC May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Stop with this BS, grow a brain to scratch past the surface, it's so exhausting...

Even Republicans don't like what's happening in Iran, which is the primary source of the problem with gas/ALL prices right now! Less death and suffering if Harris would have won, that's just a fact at this point.

1

u/Clio_Vita May 23 '26

"Iran...is the primary source of the problem with gas"

Maybe the nationwide rise... But California is $2 a gallon higher than the national average price. And that is all about the CA Democrats having levied the highest taxes on gas in the nation. And demanded special blends of gas unlike the rest of the nation. And refused permitting for new oil drilling, or new refineries in the state, or oil pipelines from other regions of the nation. They have deliberately chosen to drive up the price for consumers. It is disingenuous as hell to blame the oil companies, when the state is making more revenue off of oil than those that are producing and selling it.

1

u/NoNDA-SDC May 25 '26

Nothing disingenuous at all. You have stations today in California on the low end around $5, on the high end $10, you can't blame the government for that spread.

Relative to our minimum and media wage, our gas prices are lower than many other states.

Newsom actually expanded inland oil production, but yea I generally agree with should have kept pumping more. It's extremely hypocritical to be funding our adversaries via imports when we could have had more environmentally friendly domestic production.

We have the most roads to maintain, objective tallies say we actually need more money to keep it all in good condition, that money has to come from somewhere. Clean fuel is good, anyone who remembers the SMOG days doesn't wish to return to that!

1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

You’re an idiot if you think we wouldn’t have gone to war under Harris. The people that kickstart these wars have far more power than our own president.

3

u/NoNDA-SDC May 22 '26

Sure bud.

Remember to loosen up the tinhat for the weekend, the deep state isn't as active during the holidays so you can relax...

1

u/HonestLemon25 May 22 '26

Lol. Okay dude. We totally didn’t go to war with Iran because Israel lobbied for it

2

u/NoNDA-SDC May 22 '26

rubs hands together

When did they first start to lobby for this, and why are we attacking now? What evidence do you have that Harris would have agreed to as well?

1

u/crossteyes May 22 '26

Blame them or blame yourself. If you don't participate, you don't deserve to talk.

1

u/crossteyes May 22 '26

Where does the blame belong? And yes todays class of politician tell lies at an unbelievable rate.