After months with little apparent progress, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to hold the oil industry accountable for high gas prices and deter price gouging is now on a fast track toward passage in the California Legislature.
A deal between the governor and legislative leaders, announced earlier this week, was passed by the Senate on Thursday and now heads to the Assembly and could be voted on as soon as next week. The deal abandons Newsom’s push for the Legislature to place a cap on oil company profits and instead gives state energy regulators the power to impose one through a public process.
It’s an admittedly weaker plan that shows state lawmakers’ unwillingness to directly take on California’s multibillion-dollar oil industry, which holds tremendous political sway in a state that consumes nearly twice as much gasoline as any other and pays the nation’s highest gas prices. But it may be more effective to have regulators than state lawmakers take on the work of collecting data and setting penalties for excessive profits on such a powerful industry. The Western States Petroleum Assn. is the top lobbying spender in Sacramento, and oil companies have doled out millions in campaign cash trying to elect Republicans and Democrats friendly to their industry.
