California sits on a puddle of oil and is the logical destination for Alaska crude tankers...
California and Oregon gas prices up. Environmental fringe lunatic liberals are Celebrating. They want to tighten the noose even more to strangle oil use.
More regulation from CARB will solve this.
Isolation? Bull crap. I remember reading that local CA environmental laws have 32 different "blending" rules for distillate fuels to keep the tree-huggers happy. On top of that, CA fights any proposed power or refinery construction, outlaws offshore drilling, and otherwise throttles production and supply at every turn. Not a problem as long as they are happy paying for their wishes.
“unique product specifications” and “gasoline blending requirements” — code for government over-regulation, most likely driven by liberals.
Kalifornians are the most clueless people on earth. They vote liberal because that’s their mantra. Then when they see themselves in the middle of a third world and economic sewer they wonder why. They’re like children who depend upon a television program for a world view.
The “leaders” now in charge of the dictatorial regime that has overtaken California have declared war on most of the symbols of middle-class affluence, primarily automobiles and suburban growth. The ongoing efforts to regulate out of existence the sources of power and expansion of the existing economic base, through taxation and making cost of doing business so restrictive, that there is a net outflow of capital and talent from that once highly favored land.
Unfortunately, with the outflow of capital, there has also been an outflow of the same kind of non-critical thinking that put California in such a bind to begin with. Are snail darters REALLY more important than getting lettuce and almonds to the supermarket? Once, California was the great beacon that drew millions there from the drought-stricken new deserts of Oklahoma and Arkansas, on the promise of plentiful water from the system of dikes, sloughs, and dams that had been constructed in California beginning in the early years of the 20th Century, and made what was once semi-arid lands bloom with great profusion and fecundity, with an almost year-round growing season.
This prosperity built some really great fortunes, so much so that those who inherited those fortunes were subject to an onerous burden of guilt, and they, in their blind and tearful shame, proceeded to dismantle the very infrastructure which had created the vast fortunes to begin with. The dams were blown up, draconian measures for water use restrictions were instituted, and harsh punishments were laid down for infractions.
California used to be a leading oil production and refining center, the better to feed its growing network of roadways and vehicles to travel them, moving wealth in trucks, ships, and even airplanes, out to every other corner of America and even to foreign destinations. But now, power generation is considered “dirty” and a disgrace, so California is no longer self-sufficient in power sources, becoming a consumer that grabs away these resources in ever greater measure, and creating what is after all, a totally artificial scarcity and excessive pricing. After all, since competition is no longer feasible, where are the consumers going to go?
Elsewhere, it turns out, as the productive people flee California for more clement venues, lower taxation, and much greater plenitude of reasonably priced goods and services. Only the very wealthy, with their solicitous attitude on what is “best” for the common folk, and the very poor still remain, and “the rich” cannot be counted to give their “fair share” (which is EVERYTHING they now possess) to the support of the very poor.
Still cheaper than water in California.