How do you lower the cost of gas? By lowering the cost of the ingredients to make the gas. Even better, to make ethanol you need corn. By adding more ethanol to gas, Newsom will be raising the cost of corn and all the products made from corn. Newsom is doing his best to create inflation in California. So far, he has been successful, this is the next step.
“Newsom told the California Air Resources Board to accelerate its review of a gasoline blend that would include 15 percent ethanol, up from the 10 percent allowed in California today. Adding more ethanol would increase fuel supplies, which is expected to put downward pressure on prices at the pump.
The directive comes as Newsom is under fire for an upcoming vote on the state’s low-carbon fuel standard that is expected to raise gas prices by at least 8 to 10 cents per gallon. Congressional Republicans sent state regulators a letter Thursday requesting they delay their Nov. 8 vote.”
What you save at the gas pump you will pay at the grocery store.
Gavin Newsom targets high gas prices by boosting ethanol
Newsom’s directive revives a legislative proposal that was killed in the state Senate.
By Wes Venteicher, Politico, 10/25/2024 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/25/gavin-newsom-targets-high-gas-prices-by-boosting-ethanol-00185552
SACRAMENTO, California — California Gov. Gavin Newsom directed state regulators on Friday to consider changing California’s gasoline content in an effort to reduce gas prices at the pump.
Newsom told the California Air Resources Board to accelerate its review of a gasoline blend that would include 15 percent ethanol, up from the 10 percent allowed in California today. Adding more ethanol would increase fuel supplies, which is expected to put downward pressure on prices at the pump.
The directive comes as Newsom is under fire for an upcoming vote on the state’s low-carbon fuel standard that is expected to raise gas prices by at least 8 to 10 cents per gallon. Congressional Republicans sent state regulators a letter Thursday requesting they delay their Nov. 8 vote.
It also comes on the heels of a special legislative session Newsom convened to pass another proposal aimed at reducing what are typically the nation’s highest gas prices.
California is the only state that caps ethanol in gas at 10 percent. The rest of the country allows 15 percent. Switching to 15 percent would immediately increase California’s gasoline supply by 5 percent to 10 percent, state officials said during the legislative hearings.
Some studies have shown ethanol is more polluting than gasoline due to land use changes to grow corn, while others have found it reduces pollution.
Lawmakers introduced several other proposals in last month’s special session also aimed at reducing gas prices, including Utilities and Energy Chair Cottie Petrie-Norris’ ABX2-9, which essentially did the same thing as Newsom’s order but created a new tax in the process.
That bill passed out of the Assembly with unanimous support, but Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire did not take it up for a vote in the Senate — where it would have required a two-thirds vote because it also included a new tax to pay for the acceleration — saying that “a more thorough analysis and additional work” were needed.
The proposal drove at the same fundamental economic principle behind Newsom’s refiner storage proposal: If you increase supply, prices will go down. The bill was a priority for the bipartisan “problem solvers caucus,” which said it could reduce gas prices by 20 cents per gallon.
CARB has been weighing the change to E15 since at least 2019. Petrie-Norris’ bill would have required the agency to finish up its review by July of next year.
