Senate Dems drop oil tax. For now

The cost of a gallon of gas in California is about a buck more than the national average.  We import 56% of our energy from outside the State and nation.  Our energy costs are DOUBLE that of the national average.  California is too expansive, in part because of tax policy.  For years the Democrats have wanted to tax oil drilled in California.  For the time being, they have dropped the proposal.  But for, what I believe is a good reason.

Guv Newsom seems to be successful in closing down the oil industry in Kern County.  His allies are suing to end the oil industry on the Central Coast.  Why add a tax on oil, if there is NO oil industry in the State?  That is what is really beyond this.  The goal of the tax was to kill the industry—they just found another way to do it.

Senate Dems drop oil tax. For now

Dan Morain, WhatMatters,  1/15/20  

The San Ardo Oil Field lies along Highway 101 north of Paso Robles.

California senators scrapped a hearing on a new oil tax Tuesday, while Kern County supervisors held a hearing that drew hundreds of people and homed in on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new restrictions on oil extraction.

• Californians consume 43 million gallons of gasoline a day, 30% of which comes from California.

Berry Petroleum, which drills in Kern County, lost 40% of its market value following Newsom’s announcement.

Megan Silva of Berry testified:

• “Our policy makers must understand that Kern County and companies like Berry are all that stand between California and almost complete dependence on foreign oil, oil that is shipped across fragile ocean ecosystems, from countries that repress women, murder and imprison people from LGBTQ communities, and have nowhere near the best practices California has for environmental protection.”

Meanwhile: Sen. Bob Wieckowski, Fremont Democrat, had pushed a 10% tax on the value of oil extracted in California, generating $900 million annually. His bill was to have faced an initial vote today.

Sen. Mike McGuire, Healdsburg Democrat and chair of the Senate committee that oversees taxation, acknowledged the vote was canceled, and said he intends to hold an oversight hearing this spring that “will help us determine next steps.”

An oil severance tax vote would have forced Democrats to choose between environmentalists and oil interests including organized labor, which represents oil workers.

One such Democrat, Sen. Melissa Hurtado of Sanger, narrowly unseated a Republican in 2018. Hurtado was at the Kern County supervisors’ hearing, as were Newsom administration officials.