California repeatedly warned about spiking gas prices, fragile supply. But fixes never came. Now, California’s market is awash with gas, but prices aren’t going down fast enough to make up for the over-the-top amounts pumped by the state’s fleet of refineries, which keep pumping more and more of the fuel into the pipelines that bring it to the state’s millions of homes and cars.
Gas prices are rising much faster than the national average. But they are still almost a third up on three years ago, and many Californians are paying at least 30 percent more than they were a year ago. With gas at $4.45 a gallon, many motorists feel like they have to drive to get to the store.
In June, the average price of a gallon at the pump was $3.66, up from $3.05 a year earlier and $2.89 a month earlier. Even at the peak of the summer, gas was about $3.95 at the pump, up from $3.15 last June.
And while the national average stayed relatively constant, the price per gallon rose nationally only by 1.2 cents per gallon from March to May, while in California, it rose by 4.9 cents per gallon from March to May.