Newsom Blames Trump for High Gas Prices. But California Created Its Own Energy Nightmare.

“Look at your cost at the pump the last few days: That was an act of the Trump administration,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said unconvincingly just a few days after the U.S. began strikes on Iran.

Newsom (who is totally not running for president) has made it one of his messaging themes to pin the blame for California’s absurdly high gas prices—the average at nearly $6 a gallon as I write this—on the Trump administration.

Certainly, what’s going on in Iran and in the Hormuz Strait has caused global oil disruptions and increased prices. You can pin that on the decisions of the Trump administration and those of the Iranian regime whether you agree with the strikes or not.

But blaming California’s long-term, I’d say intentional, high gas prices on the president is as convincing as saying that the reason the state’s infrastructure boondoggles are so wildly expensive and years behind schedule (in one case more than half a decade) is because of Trump’s tariffs or something.

The fault for Newsom is not in Trump or in his stars but in the Democrat Party’s governing philosophy.

The first obvious and direct cause of California’s sky-high gas prices is the nation’s highest gas taxes.

The Daily Signal reported earlier in March that “California now has a 70.9-cent per-gallon state excise tax.” This is in part because they’ve intentionally tried to keep gas-powered vehicles off the road, and because the idea of lowering government spending is quite unthinkable.

“California has one of the highest percentages of non-gas-powered vehicles on the road,” Adam Hoffer, director of excise tax policy at the Tax Foundation told The Daily Signal in that report. “So, they need to try to get more and more money out of the vehicles that still are paying the gas tax.” 

Voters had a chance to lower and further limit the state’s gas taxes, but the ballot proposition failed to pass in 2017. Then gubernatorial candidate Newsom was against the law.

There were more, arguably even worse decisions made by California lawmakers that led to astronomical prices at the pump.

You see, California is both addicted to gas taxes but also committed to destroying the fossil fuel industry in the name of stopping climate change. It’s done this with onerous taxes and regulations that have done a good job of chasing away industry but have done a poor job of creating affordable alternatives.

Oil refineries throughout the state have been closing down.

“California has had, I think, very poor energy policy,” Andy Walz, president of downstream, midstream, and chemicals for Chevron said in an interview with The New York Times. “They’ve put a climate agenda ahead of reliable and affordable energy, and the consequences of that are that energy in California—any form of it—is unaffordable.”

The Times noted that many other refineries are closing in the state and said that according to “analysts,” this is “because demand for gasoline in the state has been slowly declining for years.” Yeah, when gas is over 50 cents more than the next priciest state it’s easy to see why that demand is dropping.

Chevron further warned Newsom and California lawmakers that additional regulation of the oil industry proposed by the California Air Resources Board, “will cripple the survivability of the state’s remaining refineries, which will result in California losing the entire industry to this misguided [Cap-and-Invest] program.”

The Cap-and-Invest program is essentially a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. To put it simply, companies must buy their yearly emission allowance, and the state makes it a lower amount every year. The tax money is then funneled into various green projects. It’s a great money-making scheme but continues to suck the life out of the Golden State’s energy industry.

Chevron moved its headquarters from California to Texas in 2024. It’s now threatening to leave the state entirely by closing its remaining refineries.

The Trump administration has tried to alleviate the price pressure on oil by drilling off the California shoreline. No surprise, Newsom has done his best to cut off this lifeline by blocking the move.

Think about that.

The guy bleating that Trump is the reason for high gas prices is literally fighting him in court to stop future drilling. In doing so, Newsom is ensuring that not only will gas prices be higher, but his state will be more reliant on foreign supplies to meet its needs.

“California once supplied nearly 40% of U.S. oil production, but decades of radical state policies targeting reliable energy sources have driven a decline in domestic output while fuel demand remains among the highest in the nation,” a Department of Energy press release noted in March. “Today, more than 60 percent of the oil refined in California comes from overseas, with a significant share traveling through the Strait of Hormuz—presenting serious national security threats.”

Do Newsom or his Democrat Party friends in Sacramento have any plans to deal with this crisis? No. All they are willing to do is shift the blame and whine about it.

The post Newsom Blames Trump for High Gas Prices. But California Created Its Own Energy Nightmare. appeared first on The Daily Signal.