SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KGTV) – Republican Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones announced he is introducing a bill that would void recent updates to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
Since 2011 the regulation has aimed to reduce the carbon output from transportation by encouraging a switch from gas and diesel to biofuels.
But recent updates to the regulation are expected to increase gas prices even more, by up to 65 cents per gallon, according to Senator Jones.
Jones represents an area of San Diego County stretching from Pine Valley to Fallbrook that is bordered in the South by I-8 and includes many communities like Poway and Escondido that flank I-15.
More than 250,000 vehicles travel on I-15 every day, according to Caltrans data. The region is also noticeably lacking in public transportation options.
“Californians already pay the highest gas prices in the nation, and Gavin Newsom’s political agenda is about to make them even higher,” Senator Jones said in a statement. “SB 2 will immediately repeal the Newsom Administration’s 65-cent gas price hike and put an end to their most recent price gouging scheme.”
The bill would attempt to void more stringent updates to the fuel standards that were approved just last month.
As an urgency statute, SB 2 would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers. That means even if all 9 Republican co-authors vote in favor, it would need approval from at least 18 Democratic Senators before heading to the Assembly.
Governor Newsom himself asked the Air Resources Board to raise the stakes, citing the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels and meet state climate targets.
“I am requesting that CARB evaluate and consider an increase in the stringency of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard,” Newsom wrote in a 2022 letter to the California Air Resources Board, “[and] work with the relevant agencies to accelerate refinery transitions away from petroleum to the production of clean fuels.”
The standard has achieved some success towards its goals, according to an analysis from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Since 2023, more than half of statewide diesel fuel consumption has been of biofuels.
But author Danny Cullenward writes that the new standards will rapidly increase gas prices by up to 85 cents per gallon by 2030 and $1.50 per gallon by 2025 – without necessarily helping the state with its energy transition.
“Although the state’s primary objective is to replace combustion vehicles with zero-emitting alternatives,” the report says, “about 80% of the LCFS credits issued to date – worth more than $17.7 billion in 2023 USD – have instead gone to combustion-based biofuels.”
To accelerate the transition, Cullenward says these credits should go toward fast-charging infrastructure and electric vehicle rebates instead.
