by Katy Grimes, E&E Legal Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As Appearing in the California Globe
These are Governor Gavin Newsom’s policies – he owns it
Electricity in Taft, California costs 275% more than what electricity costs in Bullhead City, Arizona. While residents of Los Angeles and San Francisco may feel comfortably smug hundreds of miles away from the Kern County city, it is rare to get a side-by-side comparison of energy bills in neighboring states.
How could this be?
In March, 2023 the California Assembly jammed SBX1-2, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Gas Tax, through an expedited hearing, pretending that was enough exposure to the public, and debated the bill and voted on it. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill.
Newsom’s Gas Tax also created a new panel of unelected bureaucrats with subpoena power, to investigate oil and gas companies, impose penalties, new costs and regulations, which would inevitably lead to gas shortages, rationing and price spikes. The bill created a new government agency to arbitrarily decide how much profit oil and gas businesses are allowed to make, disrupting California’s energy market and threatening the reliability of the state’s fuel supply,
Dave Noerr is the Mayor of Taft, and also has a home in Bullhead City, AZ. The electricity bills mentioned above are his. The Globe talked once again with Mayor Noerr about California Governor Gavin Newsom’s draconian SBX1-2, and the new agency it created to decide on oil/gas industry profits.
The Green Agenda
In addition to Gov. Newsom’s $310+ billion dollar budget and $75 million budget deficit, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal warned us last summer that the legislature is also advancing a $15 billion ‘Climate Bond’ to appear on the ballot sometime in 2024” – a Green Agenda climate tax.
