California Dreamin’—of Lower Prices at the Pump

What else is new?  You're poor?  Why, to make your life better, we'll raise the price of gasoline.  Oh?  You mean the poor little elected officials won't pass the law to do it.  Oh, that's ok.  We'll do it anyway.  That makes you poorer?  But look how pretty it is here!!

Get out.  Get out now.

On Sept. 11, lawmakers passed the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act, accelerating mandates first established in 2002 and requiring that half the state’s electricity come from renewables by 2030.

Yet before passing the act, in a victory for common sense, lawmakers dropped a provision mandating that half of all transportation fuels also come from renewables by 2030—a move that would have sent the state’s fuel prices to new heights.

Cue the California Air Resources Board, which, as an unelected regulatory body, needn’t heed common sense or public opinion. On Sept. 25, CARB voted to “re-adopt” the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which requires a 10% reduction by 2020 in the “carbon intensity” of transportation fuels. It also resets the carbon-intensity baseline so that the 10% reduction is from current intensity levels. That means the carbon intensity of the state’s fuel will need to drop by 2% a year over the next five years.

Hey, I love biosdiesel.  But don't pass laws mandating it.  People get it.  You buy stuff originating from the USA, collectively you can put a dent in oil imports.  That's why I would occassionally go to a small outlet and buy 100% biodiesel.