Cody Rosenfield

Consumer Advocates push for stronger rules governing self-driving cars in light of Tesla accident.

Update:  The clock last reset on October 910th after an unplanned shutdown at PBF's Torrance refinery. The refinery went offline after a 25 minute power outage in Torrance.
 
When refineries go down, gasoline prices go up.  That's why we started the clock on the next "unplanned" refinery outage: the Golden State Gouge-ometer.  We started keeping time when Exxon's Torrance refinery, down for more than one year, came back online 24 days ago.  
 

SANTA MONICA, CA – Congress will put lives at risk if it rushes to grant self-driving robot cars a shortcut around safety rules to eliminate the requirement that humans be able to intervene, Consumer Watchdog said today as the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on the developing technology.

Santa Monica, CA -- Governor Brown’s top aide, Nancy McFadden, appears to have broken state laws by owning up to $1 million in stock in her former employer, Pacific Gas & Electric, and using her official position for personal financial benefit by intervening to inflate the company’s stock price, according to a complaint filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission by the nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog.   She also failed to appropriately disclose the timing of her PG&E stock sales.

Santa Monica, CA -- Tesoro, the state’s second largest refiner, reported today that 2015 was its best year ever for refining in California. Based on an analysis of the company’s annual filing, Consumer Watchdog has found that in 2015 the company made $1.9 billion in California alone- their best year ever by over a billion dollars. The company controls 27% of California’s refining capacity.

Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court delivered this testimony and slide presentation on December 16th, 2015, to the California Energy Commission's Petroleum Market Advisory Committee in Sacramento.  The panel is charged with determining the causes of gasoline price volatility.

Being at the California Energy Commission to testify about how California oil refiners manipulated prices at the pump Tuesday was like prosecuting a case against a defendant who refused to show.