California gasoline prices are $2/gal higher than natl. average

[dan_s]

California's climate policy did not only lead to declining crude oil production (down 700,000 bpd due to lack of investment) but also increased oil imports and increased prices. In fact, in case of global oil shortages, California will suffer the most among all developed regions in the world. Because of its war against the oil business, California oil reserves declined from about 5 billion barrels in the early 1980s to about 1.7 billion barrels last year. But the potential for increasing reserves and production with proper policies and investment remain huge.

One of the results of California’s climate policies are the high cost of gasoline, in addition to all other energy sources. Average retail gasoline prices in California vs the average price in the US show that gasoline prices in California were once only a few cents higher than the national average. Now gasoline is more than $2/gallon higher. This happened as government became more aggressive in implementing climate change policies. Please note that the US average includes California prices, which means the difference between prices in California and the rest of the nation is larger than what is shown in the chart.

As a final note: what we see in California we also see in Europe. The more politicians push for stricter climate change policies, the higher energy prices climb. Poor citizens are easier to control than wealthy people.