Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
It’s time to talk about gas.
The legislature finally held its first informational hearing last week to learn more about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to hold big oil companies responsible for raking in profits while fuel prices skyrocketed.
The nearly five-hours-long hearing, convened by the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, heard from Newsom administration officials, stakeholders and researchers — but not everyone on the legislative side of the room seemed to be in agreement on just how to tackle the governor’s request.
Siva Gunda, the vice-chair of the California Energy Commission, told legislators the governor’s proposal seeks to “set a maximum that allows ordinary price fluctuations but prevents only runaway margin spikes.”
“All of the penalty would start only after refiners had been allowed to earn a healthy profit on each gallon sold — not just an extreme margin of the sort we saw last October that hurt California families,” Gunda said. “This would never force anyone to operate at a loss.”
But Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, said he heard from oil companies that the proposal could have the unintended consequence of actually increasing costs because it would cause more refineries to leave California.
“This is a tough scenario because we saw oil companies make record profits during this period while gas prices were at all-time highs. There is clearly a belief out there among many people that the oil companies were profiting off the backs of Californians. At the same time, we don’t really have a smoking gun, as far as I can see, that shows intentional collusion,” Min said.
Sen. Kelly Seyarto, too, said he worried the “governor’s approach to penalizing oil companies as a means to…
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