The rest of the country was seeing a steady decline in oil until it quickly came back up; prices at the pump will go down but there’s no telling when.
Initially, gas prices soared after Russia invaded Ukraine and skyrocketed the amount of crude oil per barrel.
This time the root of the problem is local refineries are having issues refining gasoline causing there to be a shortage.
Severin Borenstein, an economist and faculty director of the Energy Institute at Haas at UC Berkeley said, “The increase this time is due to a scarcity of refined gasoline.”
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia will not last forever and once it does end, we could see gas prices return to how they were before the war.
The United States could end its embargo with Russia over imports of cruel oil, despite the war not being over and that could decline gas prices.
Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the state budget for 2022-2023 which now affirms that the state will allocate money to distribute out to the middle class of California as part of a tax rebate.
While this will not lower the price of gas at the pump, it does give 23 million Californians a chance of receiving a check of up $1,050 as soon as Oct. of 2022.
The tax rebate will also allocate and distribute $400 in debit cards per vehicle a person owns to ease people’s pockets.
Recently, there’s also been a growing movement toward repealing a gas tax that has charged us an extra 50 cents for gasoline.
The movement has grown so much that California Republicans have picked up on it and are now calling for the California Legislature to put the repeal of the bill on the ticket for the 2022 California midterms.
A big reason why California has some of the most expensive gas prices is because of the gas tax and if we vote to repeal the tax, it will drive gasoline prices down substantially.
Marie Dodds of AAA Oregon certified that all up along the West Coast gas prices have been soaring due to refinery issues and unexpected maintenance checks.
However, Dodds gave some reassuring news by saying, “Several factors suggest prices at the pump will eventually come down by late fall or winter but it’s unclear by how much.”
We know the prices at the pump will go down eventually, we just don’t know when and by how much.
