Why are SoCal Gas Prices so High?

If you use a car to commute in SoCal, here’s some news you’ve already felt: gas prices have reached their highest level in five years in California, and have hit 17 straight days of increases in L.A. County.

If you have friends in other states, here’s some more news your friend has probably hipped you to: California’s gas prices are about $1.50 more per gallon than the national average ($4.13 a gallon compared to $2.67).

We’ve heard about those Saudi oil strikes at the heart of Trump administration tensions with Iran, but why is SoCal in particular seeing such dramatic spikes?

This is the sort of thing Jamie Court tracks as President of the consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, and he joined Spectrum News anchor Amrit Singh for a conversation on the “Golden State gouge,” the reasons it exists, and whether independent gas stations are slinging the same quality gas as the more expensive name brands (spoiler alert: they are).

Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court Discusses the recent turmoil at LADWP and questions whether the recent changes and new leadership be enough to truly reform the utility organization. 

RePlanet which runs the largest chain of recycling centers in California is shutting down. Consumers will have even less options on where to redeem bottles and cans to get their deposits back. The State needs to mandate that retailers accept recyclables and provide redemption as recycling centers  are shutting their doors. 

Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court speaks on the recent FBI raid of the LA DWP offices and how consumers are being left behind. 

"When City Hall and the City Attorney cannot clean up their own DWP mess, this is what happens, the FBI has to do it. These raids are almost certainly related to what appears to be a fraud on the court and ratepayers in the DWP billing error case that led to  tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on contracts to a company controlled by the city’s outside attorney in the case who has already taken the Fifth Amendment.

The court documents have already proven with witnesses under oath that there was fraud on the ratepayers and the Court, the only question is how high the fraud goes and how much it costs.  The FBI warrants will protect evidence and make sure that prosecutors know if the head of the DWP Commission Mel Levine and City Attorney Mike Feuer, both of whom were fingered in depositions on being in on fraud, were in fact aware of the conspiracy to defraud the court and the DWP ratepayers.

These warrants are the result of the Mayor and City Council turning a blind eye to corruption at DWP and in the City Attorney’s office that has been well documented over the last few months in sworn testimony in the Superior Court of Los Angeles."

In a letter to Governor Newsom, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker called on the Governor to freeze all new oil and gas well permits until a top-to-bottom ethics review is completed, all conflicted regulators within DOGGR are removed, and the Administration can guarantee regulatory decisions are based on public safety, not pecuniary gain.

“For too long the health of our community has suffered from dirty oil wells at the Inglewood oil field,” said Deborah Weinrauch, a resident of Culver City. “We cannot afford to keep having more drilling and fracking. In order to protect our health we need Governor Newsom to stop issuing new permits.”