SACRAMENTO, California — Consumer advocates and oil industry representatives launched opening salvos Tuesday in a bitter debate over whether oil companies are “price gouging” drivers or are themselves actually the victim of California’s green policies squeezing out fossil fuel industries.
The California Energy Commission convened the panel of energy experts, advocates and oil industry representatives to probe a gas price spike in September that at one point ballooned to an unprecedented $2.60-price gap between what Golden State drivers paid for the average gallon as opposed to the rest of the country.
Tuesday’s hearing in Sacramento was meant to dig into the historic price spike that saw prices top $6.40 a gallon before dropping Tuesday below $5 for the first time in nearly nine months. But instead of exposing a smoking gun, the commission meeting ultimately revealed that regulators are “completely in the dark,” according to one state analyst, when it comes to critical oil industry operations that shape the state’s increasingly volatile gasoline market.
