Sacramento — If you live in California, let this soak in: California Energy Commission (CEC) data reveals that Californians have overpaid $58 billion for gasoline at the pump over the past decade.
At Monday’s business meeting of the CEC, climate justice and environmental advocates expressed outrage at the oil industry’s stonewalling of reform and the findings of the 2024 annual report on gasoline market conditions that Californians have overpaid $59 billion for gasoline over the past 10 years, according to a press release from Consumer Watchdog.
Public interest advocates urged the CEC to deliver a minimum inventory rule ASAP and called the decision at the gubernatorial and regulatory level to set aside a price-gouging penalty for this behavior “misguided.”
“The oil industry is soley motivated by their own profits and therefore do not have the needs of Californians in mind, so they are not negotiating in good faith, and they have no incentive while ratcheting down their own operations to phase out fossil fuel use,” said Ilonka Zlatar, an organizer for the Oil & Gas Action Network.
She said she supports enacting a minimum inventory rule for an oligopoly of refiners controlling nearly the entire gasoline market in California and reconsideration of a price-gouging penalty.
“An overcharge of $59 billion dollars amounts to almost $1,500 for every man, woman and child in California. That’s crazy,” Zlatar observed.
Other advocates for organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, The Climate Center, and Union of Concerned Scientists, echoed many of the same points.
The Division of Petroleum Oversight reiterated findings it had released in October from its 2024 annual report reviewing gasoline market conditions and providing California gas price analysis.
Varsha Sarveshwar, Deputy Director for Policy at the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight at the CEC, said that Californians had overpaid for gas at the pump, costing consumers a cumulative $59 billion over the last decade.
“Retail prices for branded gasoline are on a significant upswing from the rest of the U.S.,” she said. “Between 2015 and 2025, the difference between the average branded and unbranded prices in California …have gone from about 20 cents per gallon to 31 cents per gallon and that is just the average.”
Consumers often see an even bigger difference, she added. “In contrast, during the same period, the difference between branded and unbranded prices in the rest of the U.S. was virtually unchanged at 7 to 8 cents per gallon.”
“In spring 2024, retail gasoline prices rose to $5.61 per gallon in Northern California and $5.39 per gallon in Southern California,” according to the report. “On April 13, 2024, the difference between retail gasoline prices in Northern California and the rest of the U.S. peaked at $2.11 per gallon.”
The October report also “found refining margins at branded gasoline stations were much greater than at unbranded stations over the last decade – 75 cents per gallon vs 41 cents per gallon. This shows vertically integrated refiners, such as Chevron and Marathon, have used their market power to jack up rates at branded stations. Four refiners will soon control 98 percent of California’s refining market, the most consolidated market in the US,
When the report was released in October, Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, commented on its significance.
“This is validation that Californians have been getting hosed at the pump for decades because too few refiners make too much of our gasoline,” said Court. “This is valuable data and sunshine is a key part of deterring higher prices. Nonetheless, the Newsom Administration took off the table valuable tools to combat this price gouging when it froze the price gouging penalty rules that it asked the legislature to create in 2023.”
“Transparency only goes so far in preventing price spikes. This should be a wake up call to regulators and the next Governor that without the hammer of a penalty the four oil refiners that control 98% of our gasoline will continue to treat Californians like a private ATM. It’s no mystery that Californians have paid too much for higher refiner profit margins, the information is right there in the quarterly investor profit reports. What the state will do to deal with the surcharge is what’s important, and so far the only thing it can do is tell us it exists. That’s not good enough,” he concluded.
For more, see: https://consumerwatchdog.org/energy/ca-oversight-report-shows-decade-of-gasoline-price-gouging/
Why does Big Oil get away with charging so much more at the gas pump in California than elsewhere in the country? It’s because for decades California officials have been beholden to the inordinate influence of the oil and gas industry.
Despite the claims of California politicians that the state is the nation’s “green” and “progressive” leader, the lobbying spending spree by Big Oil in the first 9 months of 2025 enabled the passage of legislation to expand oil drilling in California and stopped the Make Polluters Pay Superfund Act and other critical climate legislation from moving forward.
Lobbying disclosures reveal the fossil fuel industry spent $7.1 million in the third quarter of 2025, from July 1 through September 30 – putting the industry on track to reach its second-highest influence spending year, just behind 2024’s $38 million spend, according to the Last Chance Alliance (LCA).
The total lobbying and influence spending for Q1-Q3 in 2025 is over $25 million for the fossil fuel industry, the LCA wrote.
“While Californians continued to struggle with sky-high utility, grocery, housing costs and fears of spiking prices at the pump, gas and oil corporations poured millions opposing California’s transition to affordable clean energy and propping up oily lawmakers,” the LCA said in a statement. “Lobbying disclosures make it clear that Big Oil is spending this money to keep Californians dependent on fossil fuels instead of saving on clean, abundant, and cost efficient energy resources like solar and wind.”
“Records reveal that Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association were the top spenders among all fossil fuel corporations this quarter, followed by Phillips 66, a company at the center of the refinery closure debate,” the Alliance wrote.
The top five lobbying and influence spenders for Q3 can be seen in the table below, followed by the top spenders this year to date (YTD):
Top 5 lobbying and influence spenders in Q3:
Top 5 lobbying and influence spenders YTD (Q1-Q3)
Chevron has refused to respond to growing calls to boycott the company for its operation and co-ownership of Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields in the Mediterranean. At Chevron stations across the country, including in the Sacramento area and the San Francisco Bay Area, local human rights and environmental justice groups have been holding regular protests to highlight the company’s complicity in genocide, as well in environmental destruction and human rights violations across the globe.
“The 2025 legislative session saw a number of industry-friendly bills quietly advanced, backed by Big Oil’s deep pockets and political influence. SB 237 passed, opening up oil-rich Kern County to significant new drilling (as many as 2,000 new wells per year) under the guise of stabilizing fuel prices or preventing refinery closures,” the LCA continued.
“But mounting evidence shows that more drilling will not stabilize gas prices or prevent refinery closures. These developments show how the oil industry is leveraging its vast financial resources to shift policy in its favor while frontline communities—already burdened by air pollution, refinery hazards, and drilling impacts—are once again being asked to bear the cost of political decisions made in Sacramento,” the group stated.
“Big Oil has spent millions to rewrite the rules for its own gain — rules that would keep communities of color sick, polluted, and stuck paying the price for these giveaways,” said Faraz Rizvi, Campaign & Policy Manager, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) Action. “This is a test of political leadership in California. Lawmakers and the Governor have the opportunity to stand up to corporate influence and protect public health and the climate — or they can continue letting polluters call the shots. The choices made this session will define whether California truly leads the nation on climate and environmental justice, or whether it bends to Big Oil at the expense of frontline communities.”
The LCA noted that Big Oil “didn’t just push for giveaways, it also lobbied aggressively to stall the Polluters Pay Superfund Act, a critical bill that would hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for climate damages in California. Instead of paying for the harm Big Oil caused, it is trying to shift costs onto everyday Californians, putting people’s lives and pocketbooks on the line.”
"Oil and gas corporations are spending millions of dollars to kill policies that would save Californians money," said Woody Hastings, Phase Out Polluting Fuels Program Director for The Climate Center. "This thinly-veiled ploy to protect their massive profits comes at the expense of our communities and climate. To truly address cost-of-living concerns, Governor Newsom and state lawmakers need to get serious about making polluters pay for the enormous costs of the climate crisis instead of leaving taxpayers to shoulder the burden."
"Given extreme damage caused by the oil industry — explosions endangering communities and workers, asthma and cancer-causing emissions, and fueling catastrophic climate change, it's perverse the industry spends millions killing environmental protections and making transportation more expensive," said Julia May, Senior Scientist at Communities for a Better Environment.
WSPA and the oil companies wield their power in 8 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) working in collaboration with media; (6) sponsoring awards ceremonies and dinners, including those for legislators and journalists; (7) contributing to non profit organizations; and (8) creating alliances with labor unions, mainly construction trades.
The deep influence that Big Oil wields over California officials was made apparent in 2009 when Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum was appointed Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast to oversee the creation of “marine protected areas” in the same region where her organization was lobbying for expanded offshore oil drilling. The oil industry lobbyist also served on the MLPA Initiative task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.
