“Gas prices have been too high for way too long… This is not a place to be passive.”

LOS ANGELES – Today, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer hosted a media availability at a gas station charging $8.29 per gallon. Steyer tore into the corporate interests behind soaring gas prices taking up the bulk of working Californians’ paychecks and laid out his plans for reigning them in.

Steyer came down hard on Big Oil for artificially inflating gas prices and manufacturing supply shortages that leave Californians struggling to afford their commutes. Steyer’s newly released plan to address the gas price crisis includes an investigation into Big Oil’s price gouging tactics and a strict cap on the profits gas companies can collect on a gallon of gas. Should companies violate the cap, Steyer said, the state will confiscate excess profits and automatically redirect them to Californians as a rebate to offset the ever-increasing cost of living. Additionally, Steyer’s plan calls for doubling the tax on private jet fuel and investing the revenue in Californian communities and infrastructure. 

Steyer also criticized President Trump’s use of Californian’s tax dollars to fund his war in Iran. He highlighted the impact of the war on grocery prices, utilities prices, and gas prices, and emphasized that Californians are footing the bill. 

You can watch Steyer’s address here and read his remarks below:

Look, I wanted to get you here so that together we could look at these outrageous gasoline prices.

$8.29 for regular. 

So these prices are absolutely outrageous. 

If you think about them in context, a tank full of gas takes up about a whole day’s pay for a working Californian. 

That means, in a week, one day you're working for free just to get to and from work. That is incredible, and it is wrong. 

The working people of California are paying for Donald Trump's war in Iran. 

They're paying at the pump, they're paying at the grocery store, they're paying in their mortgage rates, and it's our taxes that he's using to blow up this country. 

That is money that he has called us we no longer can get for health care, for Medicare, for medical and for child care. 

This war is screwing working Californians six ways from Sunday. 

And let me say, gas prices have been too high for way too long. Big Oil has been screwing Californians for a really long time. 

They hate me. They're coming after me with IEs. 

Let me say this, there are things we should be doing to respond to this. 

This is not a place to be passive, or should be passive. 

First of all, I'll work with the Attorney General to investigate profiteering. 

But let's remember, the price of gasoline doesn't cost oil companies a penny. Their costs don't go up. All that goes up is their revenues. You know what that’s called? A windfall profit. It's a windfall profit to Big Oil at the expense of working Californians. 

And there is a very clear answer, which is a windfall profits tax that takes that money, does not send it to the government, but sends it directly back to California citizens. 

That is what we should be doing in response to this windfall profit that Donald Trump has given to his oil company pals that have him in the presidency. 

So let me say this: the alternative, the idea of a gas tax suspension, which people have talked about, that is the wrong answer. There is no revenue stream to replace that gas tax. 

And the truth is, the raise in money is going to the oil companies. 

That is the money that is hurting California right now. And they’ve got $8.29 cent gasoline for the state of California. 

Let me finish by saying this: in the short run, we need to get this money back for working Californians from oil companies. 

But in the long run, we need to move quickly to clean energy, and this is the perfect reason to move away from fossil fuels.

I will tell you, there is a guy who runs a big clean energy company in England named Greg Jackson, and he was online today saying that the sale of solar panels in England has doubled since the US started bombing the red and that is the exact right answer. 

We have the technology to move to clean energy. We invented the technology to move to clean energy. 

We need to deploy that stuff as fast as we can. We need to triple the EV tax credit. We need to make this happen fast. I know how to do it, and together, we can get it done.

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