By Staff Reporters, KCBS-AM San Francisco, CA
October 20, 2022
Click here to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Jamie Court with Consumer Watchdog says the State Legislature to reconvene to pass a windfall profits tax on greedy oil refiners ripping off Californians at the gas pump.
Los Angeles, CA -- A review of oil refiner shareholder reports shows California oil refiners made an average of 32 cents per gallon annually from 2001 – 2021 compared to unprecedented profits of between 79 cents per gallon and $1.01 per gallon in the second quarter of 2022.
Governor Newsom has called a special legislative session for December 5th to address these windfall profits.
The Golden State has a ‘mystery gas surcharge.’ Some say it’s price gouging.
By Shannon Osaka, the Washington Post
October 15, 2022
Los Angeles, CA — Pointing to windfall profits reported by California oil refiners to their investors, Consumer Watchdog issued a report showing that a windfall profits tax is needed to bring California gas prices under control and outlining how to structure the tax.
By Janet Wilson, THE DESERT SUN
October 5, 2022
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/10/05/california-gas-pump-pri…
Gas prices at the pump hit record highs in many parts of California on Wednesday, with greater Los Angeles seeing an unprecedented average of $6.49 per gallon for regular. Prices at some Southern California locations hit more than $8 per gallon.
Los Angeles, CA -- Consumer Watchdog today asked California Governor Gavin Newsom to call a special session of the California legislature to address the unprecedented, nearly $2 per gallon extra Californians are paying at the pump as opposed to US drivers.
Los Angeles, CA - A bill requiring oil refiners to disclose their per gallon profits monthly is now on Governor Newsom's desk, having passed out of the California Senate with a concurrence vote of 29 to 8.
Los Angeles, CA -- A bill requiring oil refiners to disclose their per gallon profits monthly passed out of the California Assembly by a vote of 42 - 23. The legislation has already passed out of the California Senate by a vote of 22 - 4 and goes back for concurrence.
Column by Thomas Elias, THE COAST NEWS
August 3, 2022
https://thecoastnews.com/elias-oil-gas-costing-us-more-than-we-thought/
The idea that oil companies and gasoline refiners could gouge Californians — and other Americans to a lesser degree — by as much as 100% of the previous price of gasoline seemed utterly preposterous until February.
By Dan Bacher, INDYBAY
June 12, 2022
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/06/12/18850413.php
A May 2022 update to its Tracking the Dirty Dollars Project by Sierra Club California provides some clarity why California’s environmental policies don't live up to the “green” words of the state’s politicians. This update reveals that only 15 legislators have not received campaign contributions from polluters and their allies since January 1, 2021.
Los Angeles, CA—The true cost to the public of California’s oil and gas production and combustion is estimated to reach $10 trillion by 2045, a new report released today by Consumer Watchdog finds. Californians will be paying more than $400 billion annually in public costs caused by fossil fuels between now and 2045 when the state aims to be carbon neutral.
By Staff Reports, KCRW 89.9FM NPR Santa Monica, CA
May 12, 2022
Click here to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Jamie Court with Consumer Watchdog explains the group's new report showing Big Oil refiners gouging Californians at the pump and doubling their profits.
By Staff Reports, KOGO 600AM San Diego, CA
May 11, 2022
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Consumer Watchdog puts out new report showing price gouging by Big Oil.
By JW August, THE TIMES OF SAN DIEGO
May 11, 2022
https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2022/05/11/consumer-group-claims-c…
San Diego drivers are paying high prices in part because of “unprecedented profits from refining oil into gasoline” in California, a consumer advocacy group charged on Wednesday.
By Staff Reports, KNX 1070AM Los Angeles, CA
May 11, 2022
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Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog shows how Big Oil is gouging Californians at the pump.
By John Phillips, KABC 790AM Los Angeles, CA
May 11, 2022
Click here to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Jamie Court with Consumer Watchdog explains the group's new report showing price gouging by Big Oil companies.
Los Angeles, CA -- The latest investor profits reports show that California oil refiners are making unprecedented profits from refining oil into gasoline in the first quarter of 2022.
23 California legislators who failed to support clean energy bills have taken a combined $1.58 million from the oil and gas industry.
By Aaron Cantu, CAPITAL & MAIN
May 4, 2022
https://capitalandmain.com/how-lawmakers-are-stonewalling-clean-energy-…
Los Angeles, CA -- With gas prices sky-high, legislation requiring California oil refiners to disclose once a month the price they pay for crude oil and the profit margins they make on the gasoline they refine and sell moved out of the California Senate Energy Committee last night on a vote of 8 to 0.
By Madeline Brand, PRESS PLAY - KCRW 89.9FM Santa Monica, CA
March 9, 2022
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Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court explains why California's gas prices are so much higher than the rest of the nation and what should be done about it.
By Charles Feldman & Mike Simpson, KNX 1070AM LA
February 17, 2022
Click here to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court explains how Big Oil is fleecing California consumers at the pump again by artificially raising prices.
By Kellie Hwang, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
November 19, 2021
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Thanksgiving-travel-is-expe…
After a dramatic downsizing last year due to the COVID pandemic, Thanksgiving travel is poised to make a near-total turnaround in the Bay Area and U.S., according to airport officials and industry experts.
Los Angeles, CA — Consumer Watchdog today welcomed newly introduced state legislation—SB 467—to ban fracking and a host of other more commonly employed and dangerous techniques used to coax stubborn-and-hard to reach oil and gas out of the ground.
Los Angeles, CA — Oil companies received 160% more oil production drilling permits in the first nine months of 2020 over the year before, but the number of oil wells drilled in California has slowed to a trickle, Consumer Watchdog and the FracTracker Alliance said today. The two groups updated the permit numbers and locations on an interactive map at the website: http://www.NewsomWellWatch.com.
In a year of record fires, record heat and the unprecedented Coronavirus in California, the City Council of Culver City, the site of the largest urban oil field in the U.S, voted on October 26 to phase out oil drilling. This vote took place as the Gavin Newsom Administration has expanded oil and gas drilling in California — and the City Council members hope that Newsom will take note of the historic decision.
By Dan Bacher, RED GREEN & BLUE
October 29, 2020
Los Angeles, CA — Oil and gas regulators at the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) no longer hold oil stocks or other interests in the sector that they regulate in a radical departure from past practices, Consumer Watchdog said today.
A new conflict of interest policy at the division’s parent agency, the Department of Conservation (DOC), now prohibits such investments without explicit written approval by DOC’s director.
Los Angeles, CA — The first definitive study showing perinatal harm from oil production in California to pregnant mothers proves that the state must institute a barrier of 2,500 feet between residents and oil wells and stop issuing new oil permits for wells within that zone, Consumer Watchdog said today.
Los Angeles, CA — Consumer Watchdog called upon Governor Gavin Newsom to prevent oil companies from receiving approvals for new oil wells without first requiring full bonding for their clean-up.
Los Angeles, CA—As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, new oil well permits under Gov. Gavin Newsom rose 7.8% in the first quarter of 2020 through April 4, compared to the first quarter of 2019, Consumer Watchdog and FrackTrackerAlliance reported today. The Newsom Administration issued 1,623 permits during the first quarter of 2020. It also approved 24 fracking permits after a nine-month moratorium. The total number of permits issued under Newsom since he took office in January 2019 is 6,168.
Los Angeles, CA—The total number of oil and gas well permits issued in 2019 under the Newsom Administration rivals the number issued in 2018 during the last year in office of former Governor Jerry Brown, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance reported today. The Newsom Administration issued just 1% fewer permits for a total of 4,545 versus 4,590 for all of 2018.
Los Angeles, CA - Consumer Watchdog hailed the imminent departure of the Department of Conservation’s Chief Deputy Director, widely seen as an impediment to environmental reform, as a sign that Governor Newsom plans to overhaul the way oil and gas is regulated in the state.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Hiltzik lays out in his column today in the Los Angeles Times, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies have wasted over 500 hours of Consumer Watchdog’s legal time over the last 18 months trying to get a peek at how we know what we know about the oil industry. Thank you to Consumer Watchdog staff attorney Danny Sternberg for all his hard work defending the organization.
Los Angeles, CA -- Consumer Watchdog said today that a new state report finding that major oil companies are overcharging their own stations in order to gouge California consumers vindicates the analysis that it has made since 2015 and requires new state laws to protect drivers.
The nonprofit nonpartisan consumer group applauded Governor Newsom’s call for an investigation and possible prosecution by the California Attorney General into the problem.
Expert: Per-gallon price to drop back below $4 by Halloween
By Rob Nikolewski, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
October 17, 2019
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2019-1…
Los Angeles, CA – Consumer Watchdog today thanked Governor Gavin Newsom for firing the state’s top oil and gas supervisor and instituting an ethics review of the state’s oil well approval and inspection process in response to its recent report of conflicts at the agency and request.
Los Angeles, CA -- A review of state conflict of interest forms shows that eight regulators managing the state’s oil and gas well approval and inspection process have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the oil companies they regulate. One of the regulators is among the top three in command at the State’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR).
Los Angeles, CA -- Consumer Watchdog said today that the California Energy Commission under Governor Gavin Newsom is finally taking steps to confront artificially high gasoline prices in California by acknowledging the role of oil refiners' supply and retail price manipulation in sky-high pump prices.
This oped was published in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 5, 2018
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Insurance-for-fos…
What if hospitals sold crack, doctors offered cigarettes in their waiting rooms, and firefighters gave out flamethrowers?
Angry Activists Plan To Crash Jerry Brown’s SF Climate Summit
By Matier & Ross, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
September 9, 2018
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Angry-activists…
Los Angeles, CA – Consumer Watchdog thanked Governor Brown for signing important legislation today trying to stop activation of oil wells in federal waters. The nonprofit group noted that Brown has jurisdiction over four times more state oil wells in state waters off California’s coast than oil wells Trump has control of in federal waters off the coast and Brown needs to shut those wells down. (Click on this map for the details)
“Not every Angeleno is going to prosper in the ‘Next-Gen new economy,’” according to a recent newspaper ad by the State Building & Construction Trades. The union wants politicians not to “be bullied into supporting job killing regulations that are designed to shutter yet another Southern California industry.” This one being the oil and gas industry.
Browns Last Chance campaign asked Governor Brown to cross to our side of the tracks at Union Station on Friday and start keeping oil in the ground.
Santa Monica, CA -- 30 environmental and public interest groups urged Governor Brown to articulate a new plan for keeping oil in the ground as the next step to his acknowledgment that turning the course of climate change will require extraordinary new action.
Santa Monica, CA — Governor Jerry Brown should immediately stop all offshore drilling in state waters in response to President Trump’s decision to vastly expand offshore drilling from the Atlantic to the Arctic, including in federal waters off of California, Consumer Watchdog said today.
Santa Monica, CA — As protestors heckled Governor Jerry Brown during his tour abroad for failing to leave oil and gas in the ground, new scientific research shows that his signature greenhouse gas trading program to cut emissions is ineffective.
Sacramento, CA — Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch oppose Assembly Bill 398, brokered by Governor Jerry Brown to extend California’s cap-and-trade program past 2020, as a massive giveaway of billions of dollars to the oil and gas industry that fails to rein in one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in California. The organizations are calling on state legislators to defeat the bill, which could be called for a vote on Thursday.
Santa Monica, CA—As Governor Brown challenges the Trump administration today on climate change by issuing a sweeping invitation to a global “climate action” summit in San Francisco, Consumer Watchdog is challenging the Governor to hold the summit in Northern California’s Richmond or in Southern California cities like Wilmington or Torrance—home to emissions-spewing refineries.
Santa Monica, CA — Consumer Watchdog today called on the Public Utilities Commission to require disclosure of any communications about new, unnecessary natural gas-fired power plants in Southern California made during Governor Jerry Brown’s recent trip to Beijing to tout clean energy. The trip, during which energy company executives had intimate access to the governor and energy regulators, shows the need for greater transparency around power plant decision-making.