California Sues Energy Companies For Gas Price Gouging After Voters Nearly Revolted Over Fuel Taxes

[Elderberry]

Daily Caller by Chris White 5/5/2020

California Sues Energy Companies For Gas Price Gouging After Voters Nearly Revolted Over Fuel Taxes

•   California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued two energy trading companies Monday for allegedly colluding to increase the state’s gas prices.

•   Becerra’s move comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested in 2019 that oil companies are responsible for high fuel prices. It also comes more than two years after voters nearly revolted over the state’s gas taxes.

•   Local activist Carl DeMaio told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Becerra and Newsom are “arsonists” who start fires and then have the “audacity to say someone else is at fault.”
 
California sued two major energy companies Monday for allegedly manipulating gas prices artificially.

Energy companies Vitol Inc. and SK Energy Americas drove up gas prices through “manipulative trades,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a complaint filed Monday.

“It’s greed that hurts grandma, the Good Samaritan and everyday Americans,” Becerra said in a prepared statement. “Every once in a while we get to fight back. That’s what today’s lawsuit is about. No one is above the law.”

More: https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/05/california-gas-prices-coronavirus-gavin-newsom-xavier-becerra/

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Am about ready to sell my Chevron stock as it is asinine for them to continue to have HQ in a state that hates oil companies.  California is on a path to bankrupt oil companies.

Let a state that makes war against companies get what it deserves.

[SZonian]

Becerra is swine...

One of the previous taxes was enacted at the same time as the seasonal blend switch to "hide it".

He wrote Prop 6 to be so confusing, as is normally the case, that voters turned down a chance to roll back gas taxes enacted in situ by Sacramento.

Doesn't help that the vast majority of voters are stupid either...they'll eat this "red meat" and keep on paying nearly a $1 per gallon in taxes.

[PeteS in CA]

This lawsuit is probably pure , a mix of Lawfare and trying to pick deep pockets via a settlement that would be less expensive than fighting the lawsuit.