What We Know About California's Gasoline Mystery Surcharge | Rob Nikolewski

Every California motorist knows that gasoline is expensive in the Golden State. Taxes and fees on the state and federal levels account for more than 80 cents per gallon at the pump. But even after stripping out all those expenses, the California Energy Commission says drivers are still paying more than they should because of “an unexplained residual price increase” that’s persisted for the last five years. Gov. Gavin Newsom thinks oil companies may be “engaging in false advertising or price fixing” and he has called on Attorney General Xavier Bacerra to open an investigation into what UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein has long called the “mystery gasoline surcharge.” In 2018, California motorists paid an average of 30 cents more per gallon at higher-priced retail outlets such as Chevron, Shell and 76 than the average American paid for gasoline in other states, the energy commission said in an analysis released last week.