To: Brumar89 who wrote (86334 ) 9/18/2025 5:43:43 AM From: Brumar89 Respond to California faces a self-created oil and gas crisis. Lawmakers should consider these steps nextRepublish California Voices, a commentary forum aiming to broaden our understanding of the state and spotlight Californians directly impacted by policy or its absence. Learn more here .California lawmakers just passed legislation to support the oil and gas industry in an attempt to lower costs for consumers. Below, a business professor says the package is overdue but also a piecemeal approach for such a critical problem. The opposing view: an environmental scholar argues that making it easier to drill oil won’t lower gas prices . more than the national average , and that figure would likely be far higher if not for record-high domestic oil production.pending closure of two refineries , the highest operating costs in the nation and decades of falling in-state production. What these fuel supply challenges have not resulted in is a gigantic drop in demand. This has and will continue to lead to a greater dependence on foreign fuel , greater emissions, increased exposure to global volatility, and ultimately an increase in the price Californians pay for the fuel that powers the world’s fourth-largest economy.under severe pressure to avert a full-blown energy crisis. At the tail end of the legislative session last week, legislators and the governor reached an agreement to increase in-state crude oil production.Commentary Why fast-tracking oil drilling in California won’t lower prices at the pump ease the bureaucratic red tape and permitting challenges that have forced us to import two-thirds of all our crude quietly admits as much.updated the Low Carbon Fuel Standard , the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program.Layer on infrastructure costs, amortization, new storage mandates, refinery retrofits for changing crude blends and the lagging effects of the LCFS credit. If we care about affordability, let’s price it honestly and show the math.and morally sound. California’s gas tax — roughly 61 cents per gallon — pays for the roads we all use.Meanwhile, EV drivers don’t pay the tax but still use the same infrastructure. As EV adoption grows, the revenue gap widens. In a state that prides itself on equity, a fair solution is to stop subsidizing EV owners on the shoulders of other drivers and adopt a more equitable mileage-based road fee for EVs that accounts for miles driven and vehicle weight, which better reflects road wear.
