'65 Cents Of New Tax Per Gallon': Doug LaMalfa Unleashes On CA's 'Brand-New Environmental Tax'

Forbes Breaking News

During remarks on the House floor, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) tore into California's state environmental regulations.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, in my home state, gas, fuel in California is about $1.44 more than

00:07the national average. So let's talk about where that money goes based on this graphic we have

00:13from California Energy. Over a third of the costs are state-imposed right here at the top. Now let's

00:18go to the bottom here. Let's see what it takes to get a gallon of fuel to a station. Down here on

00:23the bottom we have the the crude oil costs itself to explore and get it get it out of the field.

00:31And next here we have the refinery costs here. You see bottom about 183 or so in California, 86 cents

00:38for the refinery, then 47 cents on on top of that to get it to the retailer and be able to have it

00:46pumping into your vehicle. So then we get into the litany of taxes on top of their cap-and-trade tax,

00:51the low carbon fuel standard, you know, you go 24 cents, 18 cents. We had the federal excise tax,

00:57which is 18 on the federal side, of course. We have the state excise tax of 60 cents and a state and

01:04local sales tax about 10 cents and then an underground storage tank usage fee of another two cents. Well,

01:10that's not all. With all these out-of-pocket costs, the wisdom in California is that we need to add more

01:19tax to that. So there's an automatic ratchet up of one of these taxes of another 1.6 cents that

01:25will happen in July. But the new one, the new one is going to be a brand new environmental tax

01:31that some estimate will be 65 cents per gallon. Sixty-five cents of new tax per gallon on top of all

01:41this on already the most expensive state to buy fuel in. It's amazing how out of touch Sacramento is on that.

01:48And why is what Sacramento doing, why is that important? Because there's many other states

01:54that are trying to emulate what California does and California's CARB rules, California Resources

01:59Board, CARB. And so, for example, recently we were able to turn back an electric vehicle mandate

02:06that via the CRA process that President Trump signed that California had sought a waiver for,

02:12but also 16 other states are wanting to be part of as well. New Jersey, Colorado, New York, Maryland,

02:17Oregon, Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont, DC, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Washington, and others.

02:24They want to join that parade with California just on being forced into having electric vehicles.

02:29The state's mandate would be that one, well, 35 percent of all vehicles sold in California by the end of

02:35next year would have to be electric. You're going to have cars sitting on the lots that they can't sell,

02:39and you won't be able to buy the vehicles you want because they have to sell those as mandated.

02:45So we're in a situation where not only are we having bad ideas come from California, but other

02:51states are thinking it's a good idea to follow those. It'd be detrimental to the auto manufacturing

02:55and the market in this country, and most importantly, for choices for people.

03:00So on top of that, in California, we have two more, two state refineries that are slated to close,

03:06unless some 11th hour help can be brought for them. Phillips 66 will shut down a plant this fall,

03:13and Valero up in Benicia will shut down a plant next spring. That will take 21 percent of refinery

03:20capacity out of the state of California, where we have our own special blend of fuel we can't get from

03:25anywhere else unless the governor might give a waiver in emergency and allow it to be trained or trucked

03:30in from some other state that has refineries. So we're going to see one-fifth of our available

03:36fuel disappear at the end of the year due to mandates. And no matter how many electric cars

03:43you can build between now and then, that is going to have a very, very detrimental effect on industry,

03:49on agriculture, on mining, on timber, and as well as families, school buses, you name it.

03:54Because these prices of fuel are not going to go down. They're going to continue to go up.

04:00A study by USC, University of Southern California, independent of us,

04:06says we could see a daily shortfall of up to 13.1 million gallons of gas because of these closures.

04:13So with all this stacked together, tax hikes, the carb rule, the refinery shutdowns,

04:17that same study says we could see fuel hit $8.43 a gallon in California.

04:23Isn't that a neat reality for you? You know, I have a farm at home. We have to buy a lot of diesel

04:28in order to make things happen to grow our crop. I can't imagine having my fuel go up another 50%

04:36as well as, you know, the wage, the wage is forced to go up by state mandate. And hey, we like paying our

04:42guys. But you know, people need to have some say in what they pay. They've mandated that

04:46McDonald's workers get 20 bucks plus a ratchet on that. I mean, now you're seeing more kiosks at

04:51McDonald's. So we keep coming back. Other states that want to copy California on clean air rules,

04:57clean car rules, things like that. Some of them I mentioned on this list. You don't want to go there

05:02unless you want to enjoy this sort of thing. California at the same time has until recently

05:07had a 12 billion dollar deficit because they're giving 12 billion dollars for illegal immigrants

05:13for Medicaid. And they're going to make that up on the backs of people like this

05:17and give us things like high speed rail. I yield back.

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