When will there be relief on CA gas prices?

Californians pay more at the pump than residents of any other state — an average of $5.34 a gallon for regular unleaded, compared to the national average of $3.64, according to AAA. Statewide, gas prices have jumped 55 cents a gallon from this time a year ago.

It’s also a little more than a year ago when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to crack down on windfall oil profits became law. So what’s up?

Tuesday, the Senate energy committee asked California Energy Commission officials that very question. Citing the “crippling” effect high gas prices have on low-income Californians and commuters, legislators wanted to know if the law’s increased reporting requirements on oil companies have helped the commission determine whether to recommend capping oil profits and penalizing oil companies that exceed the cap. Any recommendation isn’t expected until later this year.

• Sen. Steven Bradford, an Inglewood Democrat and chairperson of the committee: “We want to have the confidence that the solutions will bring relief to Californians at the pump are real and not just aspirational. … Far too often, we shoot first and ask questions later.”

Though the commission is still gathering data, what it and its new watchdog division found so far was that the three times gas prices notably spiked in the last five years, oil company profits rose. Environmental fees and state and federal taxes, however, remained relatively flat during that period.

• Tai Milder, director of the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight: “Price spikes are profit spikes for the oil industry.”

Still, the energy commission said that while there is no clear evidence of industry price gouging, there is also no incentive for companies to ease price spikes.

At the hearing, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president and chief executive officer of Western States Petroleum Association, pushed back against caps and penalties. She told CalMatters that they wouldn’t reduce prices, but have “the absolute opposite effect.” To avoid incurring penalties on profits, companies will restrict supply, which will drive up costs.

Instead, Reheis-Boyd argues that legislators should look into investing more into the oil supply chain to increase supply, such as lifting restrictions on the production of crude oil in California. 

Service stations in California have already switched to the more expensive summer fuel blend, formulated to reduce ozone emissions — in Southern California on Feb. 1, and in Northern California on March 1, according to the energy commission.

And on July 1, the state’s excise gas tax will increase by 1.9 cents to 59.6 cents a gallon to keep up with inflation.

Read more on the issue in the story.

Gov. Newsom is throwing his weight behind a new bill intended to hold cities and counties more accountable for planning housing for their homeless residents.

The move comes as part of a broader push for increased oversight of state and local homelessness efforts, as legislators and voters alike demand answers as to why the state has spent $24 billion on housing and homelessness in the past five years, only to see the crisis get worse. Assembly Bill 3093, by Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward of San Diego, would force local leaders to take homeless residents into account when they create housing plans for their communities. 

Currently, cities are required to plan a certain amount of housing for “very low-income” residents who make 50% or less of the area median income. This bill would require cities to divide that category into very low (30-50%), extremely low (15-30%) and acutely low-income (0-15%), and to plan housing for each category. 

• Newsom, in a statement: “This new approach will require locals to better account for the needs of the lowest-income households and people experiencing homelessness in their long-term housing plans.”

This isn’t the first time the governor has cracked down on local officials. In 2022, he temporarily withheld $1 billion in funding to prod them to address street homelessness.

A recent state audit found California fails to track what it’s spending on homelessness and whether those dollars are funding programs that work. And this week an independent analysis of Newsom’s hallmark Project Roomkey, which moved tens of thousands of homeless residents into hotels during the pandemic, found gaps in available state data on outcomes.

A day after the most prestigious awards in journalism were handed out, the latest legislative effort to help California media outlets stay afloat drew some major opposition. The California Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday added Senate Bill 1327 to its dreaded “job killer” list. 

The bill is aimed at paying for more journalists by requiring big tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta to pay a 7.25% tax on their digital ad revenues in California of more than $2.5 billion. The measure would generate $500 million a year and could support newsrooms large and small — for instance, the tiny Lookout Santa Cruz, a 4-year-old nonprofit that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage for its work on the devastating floods in January 2023. 

But the chamber calls the tax “discriminatory” because the tech giants already pay income taxes.

• Preston Young, CalChamber senior policy advocate, in a statement: “This bill punitively targets only a handful of taxpayers that sell digital advertising, yet will financially cripple many, many small and medium-sized businesses. The brunt of this tax will ultimately be borne by smaller employers that rely on advertising to increase the reach of their business.”

The bill, unveiled last week by Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat, already faced long odds; new taxes require two-thirds majorities in both the Assembly and state Senate to pass.

The chamber’s 2024 “job killer” list now includes 14 bills. Its track record of success is the envy of interest groups: Of the 19 bills on its 2023 job killer list, only four became law, or 21%. And between 1997 and 2022, only 7% survived.