Last year the California Legislature raised gasoline taxes by 12 cents a gallon, and conservatives were so outraged they launched an effort to repeal it at the ballot box. Proposition 6 comes up for a vote in November.
Now, with considerably less fanfare, the state’s air-pollution agency has enacted a regulation that will raise gas prices as much as 36 cents a gallon by 2030 – and diesel by 44 cents. Californians already pay an average $3.73 a gallon for gas, or 85 cents above the national average.
The projected increases are part of the latest effort by the California Air Resources Board to fight climate change. The board last week voted to strengthen the state’s “low carbon fuel standard,” a fairly obscure regulation that requires oil refiners and makers of other fuels to reduce the “carbon intensity” of their products, including the greenhouse gases generated during production and distribution of the fuels.
View Article