Thus, whatever happens here – even slashing California’s emissions by three-fourths to 2 tons per capita – won’t have a major, or perhaps even measurable, physical impact. Its effect, if any, would be metaphysical, as the governor clearly hopes.
Pennsylvania has the highest rate of 51.60 cents per gallon (cpg), and is followed closely by New York (45.99 cpg), Hawaii (45.10 cpg), and California (42.35 cpg). On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska has the lowest rate at 12.25 cpg, but New Jersey (14.50 cpg) and South Carolina (16.75 cpg) aren’t far behind. These rates do not include the additional 18.40 cent federal excise tax.
The Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on the rate hike by December. If approved, power rates would rise an average of 3 percent annually starting in 2016, and water rates would rise over the same period by 3.8 percent.
Change did not come as swiftly as Pavley and Schwarzenegger had hoped. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress tried to pass a bill that would cap greenhouse gas emissions nationally, but it failed. Pavley’s effort to clean up cars’ tailpipes did eventually become the basis of a national policy. But federal rules on climate change still lack the breadth of California’s. Nations like China and Brazil have also moved slowly, at least until recently.
California refineries reaped an average of 49.3 cents on a gallon of gasoline from 1999 to 2014, according to the California Energy Commission. But this year, the average ballooned to 88.8 cents, triggered when refinery troubles in February disabled 7% of the state’s capacity at a time of low inventories.
As usual, purported consumer activists are blaming collusion among putatively monopolistic oil companies. The real culprit is anti-carbon regulation promoted by a cartel of green activists and liberal politicians that is aimed at raising energy costs to discourage consumption. Sticker shock at the pump, like water rationing and high electric rates, is the price Californians must pay for their environmental virtue.
The refinery that has historically produced about a fifth of Southern California’s gasoline has been crippled since a February explosion — and may stay that way for months to come.
The state Senate approved a resolution on Thursday praising Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change and calling on politicians to heed its call for better stewardship of the environment.
“This kind of unregulated, unlimited power is concerning,” [Assemblyman Roger] Hernandez told the committeee. “We are the ones who make the law…. This is giving them a blank check … a complete transfer of power.”
The latest increases have boosted prices to $5 a gallon or more at some stations. And it begs the question — how much more can consumers take?
A report released Wednesday from the Energy Information Administration details a “perfect storm” that shows the West Coast’s gasoline inventory fell by more than a million barrels last week while fuel imports into the region dropped to zero for the first time since March.
The unexpected magnitude of the costs, coupled with the uncertainty about future economic impacts, demand greater evaluation of the costs that will be associated with any new climate change proposals (SB 350, SB 32, and the California Air Resources Board Scoping Plan). This is hardly a revolutionary approach – in fact, cost analysis is an approach the state should prioritize for all new policies – but proponents of new climate change proposals seem surprisingly blasé about their need.
Gasoline sold in California costs more than in the rest of the U.S. — sometimes dramatically so. That’s because the Golden State’s market is isolated from outside fuel suppliers that might moderate prices. The fuel market here is an economic island, and occasionally circumstances combine to make California’s gasoline even pricier than on the actual island of Hawaii.
The new proposal calls for a return to two tiers, plus a surcharge for the highest electricity users. The rate structure would impact 75 percent of California’s residential customers, or more than 10 million electricity accounts held through Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co.
In a report on the functioning of the carbon market as a financial exchange, the European Union’s Luxembourg-based independent auditors urge the bloc’s executive arm and national governments to improve monitoring of cross-border sales of emissions allowances and come up with a common legal definition.
