As Californians look down the barrel of gasoline prices just cents away from hitting another all-time record, Gov. Gavin Newsom is quick to blame the oil industry for “ripping you off.” But even as Sacramento considers levying a punitive tax on oil companies, experts say state regulators have woefully little insight into an industry that zealously guards information on pricing and operations as confidential trade secrets.
Gas prices in California reached $6.41 a gallon on Tuesday — a dizzying 96-cent increase over the past two weeks — according to AAA. But the California Energy Commission, the state’s main energy policy body, can’t fully explain what is behind the punishing hike.
“I wouldn’t even call it flying blind,” Severin Borenstein an energy economist at UC Berkeley, said of the commission. “Everybody scrambles to say, ‘Well, we should do something about this.’ And then the price goes back down and they and everybody go back to ignoring it.”
