Why is gasoline more expensive in LA than just about everywhere else?
Click to read:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/08/green-is-bad/
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Before the Iran war, or before the affordability crisis could be blamed on President Trump's gas prices, gasoline was very expensive in California. I remember a friend visiting Los Angeles and telling me that he saw $6 gasoline when it was slightly over $3 in Texas. That's a lot of cash going from your wallet to the pump. I was surprised to hear that gas was so expensive out there.
So why was gasoline more expensive in LA than just about everywhere else? The answer comes in green -- this madness also known as the green agenda. Let's read more about it from Joel Kotkin:
Since the early 2000s, governors and legislators from both parties have signed onto a climate agenda that has contributed to a rise in California’s gas prices to around $5.55-$5.59 per gallon, compared to a national average of about $4.02. The cost of electricity is among the highest in the continental U.S.
Gov. Newsom’s response has been to blame Big Oil for price gouging. But that’s a convenient excuse. The truth is that California’s high energy prices are better understood as a self-inflicted wound, traceable to the state’s quixotic green energy policies.
Energy analyst Robert Bryce notes that wherever governments have tried to base their energy supply on a swift shift to renewables -- the UK, Germany, California -- the result has been huge spikes in energy prices.
Germany’s vaunted industrial economy has been devastated in large part because of the high cost of renewable energy.
These costs undermine California’s prosperity, while expanding the state’s already extreme divide between the haves and have-nots. The Air Resources Board’s most recent “scoping plan” -- the state framework for achieving carbon neutrality -- projects that the shift to renewable energy will result in significant income declines for households earning less than $100,000 annually, while boosting incomes for those above this threshold.
These high costs make it difficult for California to cash in on its still remarkable innovation economy. This is one reason expanding tech firms -- many of them funders of green NGOs -- have set up new facilities in Arizona or Texas rather than California. Electricity costs are a major factor in chip-manufacturing and high-intensity computing.
Let me make a long story very short: Go green, go broke.
The reality is that going green makes life more miserable for the middle class. The pain comes when you put gas in your car, or you get that electric bill in the mail. This is the reality of the green climate agenda. Everything is more expensive, and the Democrats just blame it on oil companies or (what's new) President Trump.
The green climate agenda also makes California less attractive for investment and drives more companies out. What happens when one of these companies, say, moves to Texas? They usually take jobs with them and a few taxpayers as well. Just drive through Central Texas, and you will see what I mean.
Green kills your economy -- just look at California. What a shame. Such a beautiful state governed by environmental fanatics.