California
Democrats are about to make California gas even more expensive – Washington Examiner
California has the highest gas prices in the continental United States, but they are set to rise by at least 50 cents a gallon in 2025 thanks entirely to new regulations approved by the Democratic Party that controls the state. These regulations may be intended to reduce carbon emissions, but thanks to the refusal of California drivers to give up their increasingly expensive cars, importing fuel into the state will most likely raise overall emissions.
On Nov. 8, three days after Election Day, the California Air Resources Board, a notionally independent agency whose appointees are controlled by the Democratic Party, is set to vote on stringent new fuel standards and apply them next year. CARB estimated this year that regulations similar to the ones being voted on Friday would raise the price of gas by 47 cents a gallon in 2025. The University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy did its own analysis of CARB’s new regulations and found that a price hike of 65 cents per gallon was more likely.
The backlash against these estimates earlier in the year was so strong that CARB said it would reconsider the new standard, which it did, before rereleasing basically the same regulation. This time, instead of estimating how much the new regulations would raise prices for consumers, CARB claimed it had simply lost the ability to determine how much its regulations would affect prices.
“I don’t expect them to,” CARB Executive Officer Steven Cliff told reporters. “There will be additional impacts to costs to refiners,” but he said he doesn’t “think” those costs will be passed on to consumers.
If only that were true.
Keep in mind that the new CARB standards are on top of new costs inflicted on refineries by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) anti-price gouging legislation, which forces refineries in the state to build new storage facilities to hold reserve gasoline in case refinery maintenance disrupts supplies.
The problem is that higher costs are prompting oil companies to shut down refineries. Phillips 66 is closing its Carson refinery, and since no sensible person would build a new oil refinery in California, it means California will have to import gasoline instead.
Most states pipe in extra gasoline whenever there is a temporary shortage. But not California. Its draconian environmental laws mean there are no gas pipelines into the state nor any pipelines connecting the northern and southern gas markets.
With gas refineries in California down to eight from 11 five years ago, imports from overseas are set to more than double from 8% of the total used to 17% next year.
California Democrats may pat themselves on the back for reducing carbon emissions by getting rid of refineries, but California drivers are not abandoning their gas-powered cars as fast as Democrats would like. There are still more than 25 million such vehicles registered in the state, 17 times the number of electric vehicles.
The oil must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately for environmentalists, the tankers shipping oil from the Middle East to California use a heavy fuel oil that emits lots of carbon. When California Democrats calculated carbon emissions cut by ridding the state of refineries, they did not add the emissions from oil tankers.
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California could scrap its oppressive refinery regulations and keep more of them open. It could also reform its permitting process and build gas pipelines into the state. But California is also just sitting on the nation’s sixth-largest oil reserves. It does not need to import oil from Saudi Arabia. It just needs to pump it out from under Bakersfield. It would cut carbon emissions from oil tankers and avoid oil tanker spills.
But such commonsense solutions would never be allowed while the state is controlled by the Democratic Party.
California
Mother, daughter found ‘alive and well’ after going missing on Southern California hiking trail
A mother and daughter who went missing after going for a hike on a difficult trail in San Bernardino County’s San Gorgonio Wilderness have been found “alive and well,” the sheriff’s department announced Friday.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department told KTLA they were uninjured and “walked out on their own.”
Krystal Meyers, 41, and her daughter Alexis Meyers Martinez, 21, were hiking on the Vivian Creek Trail Thursday but didn’t return, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
They were last known to be at the 10,300-foot elevation mark above the High Creek switchbacks at 11 a.m., according to the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue team.
The Vivian Creek Trail is widely considered one of the more strenuous and hazardous routes in the San Gorgonio Wilderness.
The U.S. Forest Service says it’s the shortest and steepest route to the summit of Mount San Gorgonio and requires experienced mountaineering skills.
Officials did not provide any further details about the circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — The California Highway Patrol is urging drivers to stay focused on the road as they head out for Fourth of July celebrations.
The holiday weekend can be a dangerous time on our roads as millions of drivers are expected to travel.
CHP Officer Jorge Toro joined Eyewitness News Mornings to share how drivers can stay safe behind the wheel.
Officer Toro also highlighted the importance of sober driving over the holiday.
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He says anyone hosting a party should make sure all of their guests get home safely, ensuring anyone who may be impaired doesn’t drive.
California is returning a stretch of rugged Mendocino County coast to the Indigenous nations whose ancestors once stewarded its shores.
State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians, Round Valley Indian Tribes and Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians.
The transfer of 136 acres just south of the community of Westport will mark the first time land managed by the California Department of Transportation has been returned to Indigenous tribes.
“This is beyond huge,” said J. Carlos Rivera, tribal chairman of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “It’s enormous from our tribal perspective that we are basically obtaining the land that our people once lived on before colonization.”
California purchased the swath of rocky cliffs and windswept shoreline in the 1960s to expand the construction of Highway 1 and create a scenic viewpoint for highway travelers, according to a California Coastal Commission report.
More recently, public access has been largely unregulated, and summer weekends and holidays have drawn large groups who camp and party on the beach, at times driving through sensitive areas, damaging cultural sites and leaving behind trash, the report states.
Kai Poma plans to conduct cultural and archaeological resource studies and environmental surveys and then prepare a resource management plan for the property, according to planning documents. The nonprofit and the Coastal Commission have drafted a public access management plan that states the land will be open from sunrise to sunset.
Rivera described the entire property as a sacred site. The coastal waters are used by tribal people for seaweed and abalone gathering, and the shores host youth cultural camps, he said. “Protecting the land, it has a deeper meaning for us because we’re connected to the land,” he said.
The effort to acquire the land took years — and required a change in state law. Caltrans lacked the ability to transfer land to tribal governments until 2021, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill sponsored by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) that enabled the transfer, according to a news release issued at the time. The law also bars commercial activity on the property and requires public access be maintained.
“With 136 acres now officially transferred into tribal stewardship, one of the most spectacular stretches of the Mendocino Coast will be forever protected,” McGuire said in a statement.
“This agreement, the first of its kind in California, gives these three dynamic Native American tribes the rightful opportunity to reclaim sacred lands and cultural traditions on this special piece of earth. And it’s about damn time.”
The land transfer cleared its last regulatory hurdle June 26 with the approval by the California Transportation Commission, said Neil Thapar, an attorney who works as an advisor and legal consultant to Kai Poma. Caltrans staff will next record the deed transferring the title from the state of California to Kai Poma, which is expected to happen any day, he said.
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