Gas in californina

Its good Brown stepped in, I'm sure he could feel the anger. Environmental groups have chirped in, that they don't expect the waiver to increase pollution. The effects will be immediate, gas prices will stop rising, shortages will be averted, although some stations will remain closed until prices drop. The price will only come down slowly though.

The question is whether policies will change or we will have another crisis soon.

That campaign was for gas rationing, to help the war effort during WWII. It actually is an acceptable use.

 

As California gas prices soar, political heat rises| Reuters

This is rather unique. IMHO it is obvious a squeeze on the spot markets took place. This is not collusion though. Each oil company needs to honor its contracts, and since without the waver there was a shortage, a squeeze was a natural occurance of regulation. If you regulate the market so that their are only a few large players with limited supply, squeezes naturally happen. The solution is to make it an open market - but california has put up huge trade barriers, creating the situation where this will happen in the future.
The governor demanding that CARB issue the waiver relieves the squeeze this time. When it is government and industry creating a squeeze and you are part of government, it is natual to blame industry. But we should be clear where this blame belongs.

The Exxon Torrance refinery going down from a power outage is another example of poor regulation. There is a shortage of generating capacity in southern California especially with the San Onfre Nuclear plant being down. You would think more ccgt gas power plants would be being built to fix long term problems, but the state regulators don't seem to care. Will there be more blackouts? Power likely will be built in other states to help with the shortfall, but other problems on the California grid could cause more problems. The torrance facility has needed to flare gases in the restart, killing any savings of AB32 gets by under developing power generators in state.

Why California’s gas prices are going haywire
Why gas prices vary so much from one place to the next - The Washington Post

 

You are right that this is political, but wrong about who played the politics. First winter gasoline has 98.3% of the energy of summer gas, it doesn't kill your fuel economy, that is other factors. What you may have noticed in the past is carbob -southern california's summer fuel - used 5.7% ethanol, instead of 10% blended in most of the country and IIRC california's winter gas. More ethanol, worse mileage.

The politics is this, although 30% of the nation's summer gasoline is reformulated CARB insists on a multiple blends that are only used in california. Other refineries can't easily make these summer blends, and they are more expensive so they can't really be exported. This leaves california with a shortage when bad things happen. CARB could have issued a waiver friday, and dropped the price, but the governor needed to force it to take the necessary action of allowing fuel with refining capacity. Most of the country is already on winter blends, by keeping california a closed market they create situations for price spikes.

Oil companies don't really care in most of the country, they make money on summer or winter blends. They lower the price when they can use less expensive fractions because of competition in most of the country. Regular gasoline with similar btus to summer blends but higher evaporation emissions in high temperatures is much cheaper to make also. They do hate CARB forcing them to make special blends for small regions. It makes planing and maintenance a major headache. Keeping the summer blend requirements when there is a shortage is just idiotic, and I'm glad Gov Brown added some sanity to the situation, but angry voters should take action to open the California market. In most states the EPA would just do the waiver, but California requires CARBs signature also.

 

Are you saying that the reformulated gasoline sold in 30% of the country, if adopted as a standard blend that was less expensive than Southern California's that pollution would spike? That is doubtful. There doesn't need to be a single state market. We know its the old cars that pollute, california could accelerate its program to get them off the road.

Cash for Clunkers Exchanges Polluting Classic Cars for Lower Car Pollution - The Daily Green

There is vehicle inspections. If CARB paid off, and rid us of those dirtiest 10%, it would greatly drop those pollutants. Even 5% would reduce much more pollution than single state mandated fuel recipes. I don't think anyone at CARB has even tried to look into a national reformulated gasoline program. There just isn't research money to make things easier on the oil companies and cheaper for the consumers. That might mean fewer regulators.

The way to reduce pollution is fairly straightforward, but people in california love their old cars and hate oil companies.

 

Can you show me something that says CARB has raised fuel economy of the current fleet. That is simply a not true. The CARB follies during clinton, may have actually slowed the adoption of higher cafe standards. Yes, that means more oil burned for you and me buba.

Removing lead and catylitic converters were good things. The oil companies came up with reformulated gasoline. Carb started going downhill with the mbte mandate, which caused widespread carcinogens in the water table and carcinigen's in the air. In the 90s CARB also reformulated diesel, which damaged engines. The bad science on the new diesel rule is another setback for environmentalists.

Oil companies invented reformulated gasoline. States were free to adopt it, and it does reduce pollution on older cars. If a federal agency set standards for it, then there would be competition, but that doesn't suit carb. It wants its own standards, its own formulas, and its own gasoline market for summer gasoline. Tell me, how does that benefit clean air.

 

It does cost the state nothing, but it is costing many in the state over $0.50 more a gallon. If the legislature would grow some balls they would just raise the oil tax more, and kick carb in the nuts and work with other states to standardize reformulated gasoline. They could use some of that tax money - note gas prices wouldn't go up - to buy some clunkers, and some to hire teachers. If you want to keep a classic car, you pay a $500/year pollution tax if it fails emissions. No letting the poluters go through cause they are old.

Maybe you could cut carb's budget and work with other states on reformulated gasoline. That would save some money. What reduces pollution more, removing a polluting 10% car or $1500 for a phev. If you can't do both, maybe you should do one. Those phevs will sell with the federal credits and hov stickers.

Yep because they are graded on a curve. Get rid of the curve and kick the cars off the road, or into other states. Its pretty simple, but pretty unpopular. Should people have the right to pollute more because their car is old? A post 2003 car has canisters and other things that make it pollute much less even with regular gasoline.

 

That may be true, if public policy does not change in California.

California's Gas Price Expected to Ease - WSJ.com

Note the gulf coast refineries do make reformulated gasoline, just not California's variety. The Houston/Beaumont area was on the first list for reformulated gasoline by the EPA.
I do like this comment on the article.