[kropscamaro16]

Originally Posted by trohde78

What, we can't chime in and rub it in a little? Just wait until someone from GA says it's only $2.30 there.

i saw signs from socal in the 50/60s and it was like 35 cents or some shit i wish it was still like that lol

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Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order Authorizing Theft of Voter-Approved Gas Tax Money
Order violates Prop. 69, while eliminating highway expansion and repair projects



Through an Executive Order, California Governor Gavin Newsom has redirected gas tax money to fund railway systems and other projects. The gas tax revenue would have repaired and upgraded the state’s broken highways and roads.

Californians pay the highest gas prices in the nation, most of which is taxes.

Of vital concern, Newsom’s latest road plan for California eliminates two important highway expansion projects on vital freight corridors in Central California.

Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-19-19 September 20, directing the already controversial gas tax money away from fixing local highways in favor of rail projects.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) recently explained that in the 2020 Transportation Plan are two projects that would have increased stretches of Highway 99 from four to six lanes in the Central Valley. Patterson says that a Cal Trans’ report even notes the “bottleneck” created at these sections along this major freight corridor.


Potholes filled with sandbags in Compton (photo by CSSRC)


Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order Authorizing Theft of Voter-Approved Gas Tax Money
Order violates Prop. 69, while eliminating highway expansion and repair projects

Home>Articles>Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order Authorizing Theft of Voter-Approved Gas Tax Money

Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Through an Executive Order, California Governor Gavin Newsom has redirected gas tax money to fund railway systems and other projects. The gas tax revenue would have repaired and upgraded the state’s broken highways and roads.

Californians pay the highest gas prices in the nation, most of which is taxes.

Of vital concern, Newsom’s latest road plan for California eliminates two important highway expansion projects on vital freight corridors in Central California.

Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-19-19 September 20, directing the already controversial gas tax money away from fixing local highways in favor of rail projects.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno) recently explained that in the 2020 Transportation Plan are two projects that would have increased stretches of Highway 99 from four to six lanes in the Central Valley. Patterson says that a Cal Trans’ report even notes the “bottleneck” created at these sections along this major freight corridor.


Potholes filled with sandbags in Compton (photo by CSSRC)
“Instead of building capacity on our highways to move people and freight, Governor Newsom is funding his pet rail projects throughout the state,” Patterson said. “This theft of funds meant to improve our roadways is a glimpse into the future of transportation in our state and Newsom continues to execute his September 2019 Climate Change Executive Order. The Central Valley is just the beginning. Other road projects will likely be next.”

“This is theft of our gas taxes by Executive Order. Governor Newsom is intentionally starving us out of our roads. Voters approved SB 1 with the promise that our crumbling highways would get the attention they deserve. Instead of building capacity, our gas tax funds are being siphoned off to fund Newsom’s favored pet-projects,” Patterson said. “Governor Newsom’s promise not to forget about the Central Valley is full of hot air, just like his climate plan.”

Gov. Newsom’s office issued a press statement to explain the plan, just ahead of Climate Week:

Transportation Systems: The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) is directed to invest its annual portfolio of $5 billion toward construction, operations and maintenance to help reverse the trend of increased fuel consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the transportation sector. CalSTA, in consultation with the Department of Finance, is also directed to align transportation spending, programming and mitigation with the state’s climate goals to achieve the objectives of the state’s Climate Change Scoping Plan, where feasible. Specifically the Governor is ordering a focus for transportation investments near housing, and on managing congestion through innovative strategies that encourage alternatives to driving.

CBS47 said, “It calls for leveraging billion in annual state transportation funds to reduce greenhouse gases and emissions.”

Assemblyman Patterson says, “One of the very first things Governor Newsom decides to do, is put forward an executive order and his people at Caltrans have decided they are going to terminate addition north and south freeway lanes on Highway 99 in Tulare and Madera County. I’m almost speechless with response to this,” CBS47 reported. “When you pay for gas and you pay a gas tax, a railroad is not a highway. This is bait and switch. This is saying one thing and doing something else. I just think all who represent California both Democrats and Republicans have better step up and stand up and say Mr. Governor you can’t do this.”

California’s roads and highways are a disaster waiting to happen, thanks to decades of neglect by the state.

California’s largest state budget ever — $215 billion — is larded with a record number of local pork-barrel projects injected by individual legislators, often in exchange for “horse trading” votes on passage of certain pieces of legislation – including transportation and resources spending, as the Globe outlined in June. The $230,650,000 million of extra spending in Resources and Transportation can make your head swim. So why did the governor need to take gas tax revenue if there is plenty of money for pork projects?

In his State of the State address, Newsom focused on affordable housing goals: “He also called out how the Legislature has expedited judicial review on California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for wealthy professional sports teams owners – the most recent exemption was done by then-Senator Darrell Steinberg for Sacramento’s Golden 1 Arena, home of the Sacramento Kings. “It’s time we do the same thing for housing,” Newsom said. Then he said that home builders and labor leaders are working together to forge a compromise to accelerate production. ‘If we want a California for All, we have to build housing for all.’”

Just last week, Newsom vowed to accelerate the deadline for communities to meet their mandated short-term housing goals to two years from three. “Our state’s affordability crisis is undermining the California Dream and the foundations of our economic well-being,” said Newsom, “Families should be able to live near where they work. They shouldn’t live in constant fear of eviction or spend their whole paycheck to keep a roof overhead,” the Sacramento Bee reported.
He vowed to “spend $1.75 billion to entice communities to build more.”

Newsom threatened to take money from gas tax bill, Senate Bill 1 by Sen. Pres. Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), and ‘redirect’ those funds if cities and counties don’t meet his new housing goals.

SB1, was sold to the people based on its name, as was the gas tax repeal initiative: the “Road Repair and Accountability Act.” The tax money, voters believed, was to fund repairs for the state’s aging roads and highways and bridges.

“This legislative package invests $54 billion over the next decade to fix roads, freeways and bridges in communities across California and puts more dollars toward transit and safety,” RebuildingCA.gov detailing SB 1 says. “These funds will be split equally between state and local investments.”

“California’s state-maintained transportation infrastructure will receive roughly half of SB 1 revenue: $26 billion. The other half will go to local roads, transit agencies and an expansion of the state’s growing network of pedestrian and cycle routes. Each year, this new funding will be used to tackle deferred maintenance needs both on the state highway system and the local road system, including:

Maintenance and Rehabilitation of the State Highway System: $1.8 billion

Maintaining and Repairing the State’s Bridges and Culverts: $400 million

Repairs to Local Streets and Roads: $1.5 billion

Matching Funds for Local Agencies: $200 million

Bike and Pedestrian Projects: $100 million

Freeway Service Patrol: $25 million

New Funding to Transit Agencies: over $750 million

Trade Corridor Enhancement Program: $300 million

Solutions for Congested Corridors Program: $250 million

Local Planning Grants: $25 million

Transportation-Related Research at state universities: $7 million

Workforce Training Programs: $5 million

Proposition 69 Violation



In 2018, Californians also overwhelmingly passed California Proposition 69, the Transportation Taxes and Fees Lockbox and Appropriations Limit Exemption Amendment. Prop. 69 requires that revenue from the diesel sales tax and Transportation Improvement Fee enacted by the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 be used for transportation-related purposes; and exempt revenue generated by SB 1’s tax increases and fee schedules from the state appropriations limit.

CBS47 said they contacted Caltrans about its report to delete the widening projects on Highway 99. A spokesperson said she hadn’t seen the report. California State Transportation Agency released a statement regarding this report:

“The state is confronting the climate crisis head on. In doing so, Caltrans will use available transportation dollars to prioritize projects that manage congestion and reduce vehicle miles traveled in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Those who claim the state is canceling projects funded by gas tax dollars are incorrect. Aligning climate goals with transportation goals requires new thinking, not obstructionism. With the long lead time to plan, design, and construct transportation projects, we must act now to achieve our climate goals.”

CALIFORNIA TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY DAVID S. KIM

Lastly, in what appears to target mostly Republican districts, Gov. Newsom also said in the press statement, “Moving away from internal combustion engines is critical to reduce carbon emissions and to address major pollution issues across the state, especially in the Central Valley and Inland Empire.”

“CARB shall strengthen existing or adopt new regulations to achieve greenhouse gas reductions within the transportation sector.”

“This is worse than a shell game or bait-and-switch,” Patterson said on his Facebook page. “It is taxpayer theft by executive order. Promise voters that road taxes will fix our highways and streets, then siphon off $5 billion for his Climate Change plan – a new scheme to get us to give up our cars.”

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Mystery surcharge’ boosts California gas taxes to $1.26 per gallon
Where’s the money going? That mystery surcharge adds up to $11 million a day, or $4 billion a year.

Kevin Smith


Southern California motorists are paying nearly a dollar per gallon in gas taxes, and a UC Berkeley professor says they also pay a “mystery surcharge” of 28 cents a gallon. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

With California gas prices topping $4 for the first time since 2015, many have been quick to place the blame on refinery problems and a switch to the summer blend of gas.

Both clearly figure into the mix. But the Golden State’s broad array of gas taxes and a “mystery surcharge” no one can quite explain placed California motorists at a disadvantage to begin with.

Here’s a breakdown of what we pay in gasoline taxes, according to the California Energy Commission. All numbers except the final category have been rounded to the nearest penny and were effective as of March. The combined Cap & Trade and low Carbon Fuels Standard costs were effective April 12.

• Federal excise tax — 18 cents
• State excise tax — 42 cents
• State and local sales tax — 8 cents
• State underground storage tank fee — 2 cents*
• Additional costs for compliance under Cap & Trade, as well as the Low Carbon Fuels Standard — 28 cents
• Total — 98 cents

* Note: The state and local sales tax is calculated at an average state sales tax rate of 2.25% percent although actual sales tax rates vary throughout California.

The ‘mystery surcharge’

Severin Borenstein, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas, said his own tax calculations came within a penny of that total. But the mystery surcharge — an added tax that has yet to be identified — adds another 28 cents per gallon, he said. That boosts the total taxes to $1.26 a gallon.

“In January, a group of 19 state legislators sent a letter to the California Attorney General’s Office saying, ‘We want you to investigate this,’ ” Borenstein said. “They have never replied. They said they don’t make public statements about investigations. We don’t even know if they are investigating it.”

No luck in tracking it down

Borenstein previously served as chairman of the state Petroleum Market Advisory Committee. The panel was formed by the California Energy Commission to look into price spikes.

“We spent two years trying to find out what that mystery surcharge was, but we couldn’t dig deep enough to get that information,” he said. “The committee disbanded because California’s open-meeting rules made it very difficult for the five of us — who were located all over the state — to get together.”

The surcharge may be a mystery, but the economic fallout isn’t. Borenstein said it’s costing California drivers $11 million a day, or $4 billion a year.

“We have paid about $20 billion through this mystery surcharge since the ExxonMobil Refinery fire in 2015,” he said. “That works out to about $500 per person.”

Possible causes

Borenstein hasn’t determined what might be fueling the mystery tax, but he has some theories.

“If you look at our gas usage, it’s been climbing since 2014,” he said. “That pushes capacity constraints on the system, which means we need more imports. But I’ve heard that port space and storage space at the ports has been harder to come by.”

Borenstein also noted that the Chevron refinery in El Segundo and Andeavor’s refinery in Carson produce about half the state’s special blends of winter and summer gas.

“In antitrust terms that’s a pretty big concern,” he said. “You wonder if imports are really flowing freely into this market.”

Things could be worse. In Hong Kong, drivers pay the equivalent of $8.26 in U.S. dollars per gallon. Other high-priced countries include Norway ($7.34), Greece ($6.94), Denmark ($6.89), Sweden ($6.77) and Italy ($6.72).

When the price hikes started

California gas prices began inching up when refineries slowed their operations last month to do scheduled maintenance and switch from their winter blend of gas to California’s specially formulated summer blend, which is environmentally more stringent and designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

That happens every year.

But prices escalated rapidly after Valero Energy Corp.’s refinery in the Bay Area stopped processing oil after a week of smoky emissions prompted air quality warnings. Things got worse as the result of a fire at the Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles and technical issues at Chevron Corp.’s El Segundo plant.

Relief on the way?

Those factors — combined with California’s already high gas taxes — conspired to push prices well beyond the comfort level for most California consumers and businesses. Still, things should be looking up soon, according to Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of Southern California.

“I think we’ll get some relief in next couple or three weeks,” Spring said. “Refinery issues tend to be relatively short-lived. I know the Phillips 66 refinery should be opening up their units again in 2 ½ to three weeks and by then we should see a couple ships bringing in more of California’s specially formulated gas. That should help reduce prices.”

High prices

Meanwhile, Southland drivers are paying some of the highest prices they’ve seen in years.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County’s average price for a gallon of regular gas was $4.07, up 70 cents from a month earlier. Orange County was close behind with an average of $4.05 per gallon, and prices in San Bernardino County ($3.98) and Riverside County ($3.99) weren’t much better.

But as Southern California drivers know, it can get worse — a lot worse.

Four Union 76 stations in Pasadena, Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills were selling regular for a whopping $4.89 a gallon on Tuesday.

On the flip-side, a Sam’s Club in Ontario was selling regular for $3.64 a gallon and a Costco in Irvine posted regular for $3.75 a gallon.