The oil industry has a ready answer: it’s taxes. It’s regulations. It’s the special California blend. These explanations aren’t entirely wrong — but they’re incomplete. What they leave out is the role that oil company margins, refinery consolidation, and pricing practices play in keeping Californians paying more.
A captive market
California’s gasoline market is largely isolated from the rest of the country. The state requires a cleaner-burning fuel blend, and only a handful of refineries produce it — most of them owned by the same handful of major oil companies.
When one refinery goes offline, prices spike. When prices spike, profits soar. And the companies that control the supply are the same companies collecting those profits.
Record profits, real harm
In recent years, major oil companies have posted some of the largest profits in their history — while Californians absorbed those costs at the pump. Higher gas prices don’t just mean more expensive commutes. They feed through to the cost of every good that gets transported, grown, or manufactured — which is to say, almost everything.
The political dimension
The oil industry is one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Sacramento. It spends tens of millions of dollars each election cycle to protect its interests, resist transparency requirements, and block policies that would give Californians more options. That investment has paid off — for the industry.
We’re working to change the math.