BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Dr. Jasmeet Bains, the 35th District assemblywoman, released a statement demanding the resignation of the California Air Resources Board chair.
- While gas prices in Bakersfield are just below the California average, they’re more than a dollar higher than the national cost.
- Following a recent hearing, assemblymember Dr. Jasmeet Bains of Delano claims the California Air Resources Board has played a role in these prices.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The average price for gas in California is about $4.80 per gallon, with Bakersfield about ten cents less, this according to AAA.
Dr. Jasmeet Bains, the 35th district assemblywoman representing Kern County, claims that Liane Randolph, the chair for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) plays a big role in gas prices.
“The CARB director directly admitted and stated that they do no analysis of the impact of their policies on gas prices. I was shocked when I heard those words,” said Dr. Bains.
On Wednesday, May 28, the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee hosted its meeting.
In the hearing, assemblymember David Alvarez for District 80 asked Randolph, “How are we identifying the consumer costs to the regulations that are coming through CARB?”
Which she responded, in part, “Pursuant to the administrative procedures act and the requirements, we do do an economic analysis. That economic analysis does not identify specific costs to specific consumers, partly because… there are a lot of variables involved in that. And so what it’s a lot of the rules that we pass, we are focused on public health. And so what we end up doing is looking at what the cost to implement the regulation would be, but we also look at what the public health savings would be as a result.”
Alvarez follows up with, “You calculate important impacts to health and the decreased costs in health disparities that exist in communities like the ones I represent, but you don’t identify the cost to consumers?”
To which Randolph confirms, “Correct, we don’t analyze like a retail cost because we do analyze what the costs of compliance and what the entities covered by the regulation, what we anticipate their cost would be. What we don’t do is take the next step to try to extrapolate how that cost would flower through to the consumer, because in many instances, that would be speculative.”
23ABC reached out to CARB for a comment. Lindsay Buckley, spokesperson for CARB, emailed us a statement:
CARB Chair Liane Randolph has dedicated her life to public service and remains committed to working with the legislature to address affordability concerns, including the costs of climate impacts which experts project costs the state $16 billion a year.
The attacks on the Chair’s comments lack context. To be clear, CARB does analyze the overall costs to consumers. The Chair specified and clarified again later in the hearing that CARB follows the full letter of the law and prepares a regulatory impact assessment for all major regulations. This includes overall economic and fiscal impact assessments to ensure benefits outweigh costs.
Air pollution is a silent killer that causes heart and lung diseases, and cancer. Over the last 50 years, the state’s clean air efforts have saved $250 billion in health costs through reduced illness including reducing diesel-related cancer risk nearly 80 percent.
The state tracks gas prices weekly and reports the information on a public dashboard: https://www.energy.ca.gov/estimated-gasoline-price-breakdown-and-margins [energy.ca.gov].
In addition to health savings, altogether California’s climate portfolio has delivered a significant return on investment – lowering fuel costs through more efficient vehicles that use 22% less fuel today, generating $33 billion for climate investments, delivering $15 billion in bill credits back to utility customers and launching new job-creating industries as part of our clean energy economy.
It’s important to note that independent experts have projected Low Carbon Fuel Standard pass-through costs could range from as low as 5 cents to as high as 8 cents per gallon, much lower than widely reported projections. This was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in November:
The Low Carbon Fuel Standard doesn’t directly add to gasoline prices, but experts generally agree that oil and gas companies pass through between 8 and 10 cents per gallon to consumers. That’s likely to increase by between 5 and 8 cents per gallon with the changes, according to Colin Murphy, deputy director of UC Davis’ Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy.
The UC Davis estimate has since been validated by third party commodities markets experts at OPIS and refineries who report similar values to the California Energy Commission monthly, and we will continue to monitor the data.”
23ABC also asked Dr. Bains, “Has there been any specific policies from CARB that you’ve noticed that increased prices?”
She responded, “CARB is directly responsible for the affordability crisis in California. And they just admitted they don’t care.”
In a statement, Dr. Bains demands that Randolph resign from her position on the board.
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