An NBC News investigation finds the price of gas in California is not because of the war with Iran. It’s because of Gavin Newsom and California Democrats. “We are paying on average $2 a gallon more than the national average for drivers across the nation,” said an expert on the oil and gas industry. This is NBC News, the progressive news outlet.
According to the expert, the calculations supporting California’s gas prices are flawed. In fact, prices vary widely across the state. At a station in Big Sur, regular unleaded will now cost you nearly $9.50 per gallon, while drivers pay almost $10 for premium.
In the Bay Area, prices aren’t quite that high yet, but they are hovering around six bucks a gallon out of pocket.
One man told the reporter that regular gas was $2.30 a gallon when he left home in Oklahoma City. “And I’d hate to add everything up to see what I spent on gas; the war in Iran and its effect on the key shipping lane for so much oil are fueling the overall jump at the pump nationwide. But drivers say that doesn’t explain why it’s so much more here.”
The NBC reporter said, “We asked the experts, and they said that about half of the increase is due to higher taxes, environmental fees, and the higher cost of producing California’s cleaner-burning gasoline.
“Dr. Severn Borenstein is faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Haas Energy Institute, and he has a name for the extra bucks you pay in California. The difference is what I call the mystery gasoline surcharge. Dr. Borenstein says that before 2015, when a refinery closed in Torrance, California’s gas prices were largely in line with the national average, with another 90 cents to a buck tacked on for our state’s gas taxes and environmental costs, but with prices now two bucks above the average, the math makes no sense, even to the experts.
Since 2015, California’s additional payments for gasoline above what’s justified by taxes and environmental costs amount to over $60 billion. Dr. Borenstein says limited refining capacity in the state’s specialty, mixed cleaner-burning fuel, accounts for about a third of that extra dollar.
“Most of the differential actually occurs downstream, somewhere in the distribution, marketing, and retailing of the gasoline. Now the state has impaneled a new California Energy Commission division to investigate the so-called mystery surcharge.”
Commiefornia thinks your money is theirs. And they freely take it, and don’t provide oversight. They don’t care. Gov. Newsom would like to do that for the entire country.
NBC News investigation finds the price of gas in California is not because of the war with Iran, it’s because of Gavin Newsom and California Democrats
“We are paying on average $2 a gallon more than the national average for drivers across the nation and an expert on the oil and… pic.twitter.com/qmNvY9j4P4
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 4, 2026
Gov. Newsom lied again.
Gavin Newsom blames record-high gas prices on Trump’s war in Iran https://t.co/ayPKfWNJ3n via @DailyMail Gavin Newsom is really a pathological liar. California doesn’t have any competition to bring down gas prices, they set their own prices! They add their OWN TAXES.
— Diane Workman (@DianeWorkm88888) March 12, 2026