WHY SHOULD LEGISLATORS FAVOR LEGAL POT BUSINESSES?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WHY SHOULD LEGISLATORS FAVOR LEGAL POT BUSINESSES?”

 

The ill effects of cannabis use have been well known for generations: spaced out behavior, impaired judgment, clouded or heightened senses depending on your personal biology, a distorted sense of time, slowed reactions, lower motor skills, reduced inhibitions, less mental focus and memory.

 

That’s only part of the list, which some claim is balanced by the relaxing effects of marijuana and its partially proven ability to ease the pain caused by some medical treatments.

 

Despite all the harms of marijuana, state legislators have steadily pushed increases in its use ever since recreational pot sales became legal via a 2016 ballot initiative.

 

Now the state Assembly has passed yet another measure to ease life for pot shops. If passed by the state Senate, this one, known as AB 564 and sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Matt Haney of San Francisco, would lower the state excise tax on legal pot from the 19 percent it automatically reached on July 1 back to 15 percent at least until 2030, squashing a potential future increase to 25 percent.

 

This measure is designed to protect legal pot prices from being undercut by untaxed illegal growers whose product is widely available informally. It comes just one year after legislators also tried to help legal pot use by allowing Amsterdam-style lounges that could serve food and drinks along with varieties of the weed.

 

The real question here is what legalized pot has done to deserve the most-favored-business status informally bestowed upon it by lawmakers. No one has produced any information to refute the long list of harmful pot effects.

 

And two new studies originating in Northern California raise new questions about continued recreational sales of the weed.

 

One, co-authored by researchers from the Kaiser Permanente health care service and Oakland’s regional Public Health Institute, found that teenagers living in areas with more cannabis stores experience significantly higher rates of mental health issues.

 

The study used data from nearly 96,000 insured adolescents, finding that those in cities or counties without pot stores are significantly less likely to have been diagnosed with psychotic disorders. Greater retail activity and availability – regardless of laws prohibiting sales to anyone under 18 – translated to higher rates of diagnosed psychotic, depressive and anxiety disorders.

 

“This study reinforces the importance of where and how cannabis is sold in protecting adolescent mental health,” said Lynn Silver MD, a program director at the Public Health Institute.

 

Almost simultaneously, a UC San Francisco study determined that long-term cannabis use is linked to a greater likelihood of developing heart disease. The risk stems from reduced blood vessel function, said the study, published in the American Medical Association’s journal Cardiology.

 

The study involved 55 “outwardly healthy persons between 18 and 50.” It revealed that eating edible marijuana products like gummies has the same impact on heart health as smoking pot. Study subjects had been consuming marijuana in one form or another at least three times weekly for a year or more.

 

All of these regular users were found to have “decreased vascular function,” comparable to regular smokers. Their blood vessel capacity was roughly half as high as among non-cannabis users.

 

We already knew marijuana use was harmful for bunches of reasons, but direct proof of significant long-term physical harm has been hard to locate.

 

The findings reinforce a year-old study from the American Psychiatric Assn. warning that individuals who want to remain mentally sharp in old age (defined as 65 and older) should not smoke pot regularly, nor eat pot-laced products from chocolates to layer cakes.

 

The real question here is not whether marijuana use is harmful. That’s been known for at least a century, even if some details are only now emerging.

 

The real question is why California legislators are so supportive of this harmful industry, treating it with kid gloves even as other drugs get harsh treatment.

 

Yes, campaign contributions by pot-linked labor unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers no doubt play a role in bringing near-unanimous votes on laws this industry wants passed. So do tax receipts. But legislators should be able to resist those pressures.

 

Which leads to another question: What drug are legislators using when they give sustained favored status to an industry that does much more harm than good?

 

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Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

NEWSOM’S HASTY CEQA CUTBACKS WILL BRING UNPOPULAR PROJECTS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“NEWSOM’S HASTY CEQA CUTBACKS WILL BRING UNPOPULAR PROJECTS”

 

One certainty about the just-signed AB 130 budget trailer bill is that it will lead to building projects that are extremely unwelcome in the areas where they’ll eventually stand.

 

This bill, which quite improbably passed the state Assembly on a unanimous vote after being pushed for two years by the East Bay’s Democratic Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, is likely to produce a boom in what is loosely called “infill housing” designed to help solve the state’s unquestioned housing shortage.

 

One of its major features applies the tag “infill housing” to anything built on any vacant plot of land containing less than 20 acres in a city or urban mapping area.

 

Until now, most folks thought of infill housing as apartments or condominiums on vacant lots or other small pieces of property. But 20 acres is an entirely new definition of “infill” or “small.” A plot that size built up to five stories can easily hold 1,000 or more new units, which is a large development. The previous definition of an infill site had a size limit of 5 acres.

 

As usual, with new housing in the new California, parking space requirements will be minimal, sometimes even non-existent for developments near major transit stops, on the presumption that very few living there will want the independence of owning their own car or small truck. Occupants will have to ride transit or fight for street parking every time they come and go from their new digs.

 

What’s more, the new developments will not be subject to community input, with no mandated public hearings on permits. It’s a developer’s fantasy.

 

Except for the Donald Trump effect. His campaign for unprecedented deportation efforts by Homeland Security agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol has created new shortages of labor in trades from roofing to drywall, from plumbing to demolition of smaller existing structures.

 

So one consequence of AB 130, which was quickly whipped into state law via the “budget trailer bill” maneuver, will likely be the proliferation of canvas-covered fencing around building plots where work is delayed.

 

Never mind that AB 130, which became law shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the newest state budget, is wildly unpopular, once Californians are informed of what it contains – which is the biggest blow to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) since it passed in 1970 and was signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

 

Fully 66 percent of Californians in a poll taken for building trades unions and other major state interest groups opposed the bill once they learned it eliminates community input on new developments and bypasses some environmental protections, especially on land that has previously been surrounded by urban uses.

 

The poll also showed 70 percent of Californians still support CEQA, despite years of grousing about it by governors from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jerry Brown to Newsom.

 

The single most significant new related bill, also a budget trailer, is Senate Bill (SB) 131, from San Francisco’s Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener. This creates new CEQA exemptions for things like health centers and rural clinics, childcare centers, food banks wildfire mitigation projects and parks.

 

Why would legislators unanimously pass a bill that goes so much against public sentiment as AB 130? One reason is differences in the polls, with some showing majorities in favor of building as much housing as possible as soon as possible, and hang the consequences.

 

Another is that Newsom is clearly seeking a legacy. While running for president in 2027 and 2028, he will only be able to get so much mileage out of being the anti-Trump, a role he has sought to grab ever since the president nationalized the California National Guard and sent thousands of its troops into Los Angeles, where there was little violence either before or after their arrival.

 

If Newsom can claim to have solved or at least partially solved the housing crunch and California rents begin to drop, he will have a brand new hook for his presidential hat. 

 

That’s strong motivation for any politician and probably explains the easy, greased passage of AB 130 better than anything else.

 

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

WILL STATE ASSEMBLY SAVE CALIFORNIA ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“WILL STATE ASSEMBLY SAVE CALIFORNIA ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?”

 

There is rarely a shortage of self-destructive bills in the Legislature when lawmakers come back from their summer recess and get ready to confront the real consequences of proposed laws that have already passed one legislative house.

 

Perhaps this year’s best example as legislators arrive back in town this August will be a bill known as SB 540, sponsored by Silicon Valley Democrat Josh Becker.

 

This bill would essentially end California’s ability to decide what kind of electric energy it will use for all time to come. It throws out Enron-era protections against price manipulation and essentially gives the Trump administration control over this state’s environmental laws.

 

Yes, coal could be back, if that’s what President Trump or utility executives in states like Idaho and Utah want to impose on Californians. And they do.

 

This summer has already given ample evidence of how poorly Trump and his minions understand California. First, they had the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency conduct a wave of raids across Southern California, claiming they were going after criminal illegal immigrants.

 

They did in fact arrest and deport a few undocumented persons with serious criminal records. But most raids were conducted at restaurants, car washes and building supply stores where the undocumented often seek day work. These aroused crowds of thousands, almost all of whom protested peacefully, even though there was some vandalism, mostly at night when crowds had thinned.

 

Trump responded by nationalizing and calling out thousands of National Guard troops, excoriating Newsom for interfering with federal operations when he did nothing of the sort and threatening mass arrests. All while local police and sheriff’s deputies already had things under control.

 

There is no reason to believe Trump understands the California electric grid any better than he understands how Californians protest and react to what many see as injustice.

 

That’s what makes the Western grid envisioned in SB 540 so potentially pernicious. This bill, strongly backed by Google and other Silicon Valley giants, would give much of the power to determine where and what kind of power plants would be placed around the West to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

 

That agency is now controlled by Trump appointees who outspokenly advocate for coal power. Californians who want cleaner energy and more solar and wind power will be overruled, just as Newsom was when Trump ordered out the National Guard.

 

So much for California’s independence or control over its own energy fate.

 

Of course, big California companies purveying currently trendy artificial intelligence are all for this. They’re building more and more data centers in the rural west, including parts of California’s Central Valley, and they need huge new power supplies.

 

Yes, some senators voiced concerns about Trump pre-empting California laws to provide this – and the lack of legislative oversight in the bill. But that did not keep the vote in the state Senate from going 33-1 to advance this deregulation law.

 

As the bill moved through Senate committees, amendments were added to require minimizing costs and maximizing supply, as well as some transparency. But all those disappeared before the final vote and would need to be reinstated by the Assembly – unless it is similarly intimidated by the high-tech support for this measure.

 

One analysis by the Senate Judiciary Committee was especially on point: “California could see significant harms to its energy goals and its standing in the regional market,” the committee staff said. “These dangers are even greater now that Trump has…directed the U.S. attorney general to find ways to curtail our state’s climate change efforts.”

 

Still, many Democrats with strong environmental records went along with this, even okaying repeal of price gouging protections.

 

It’s all a way for artificial intelligence firms to control the electric market for their benefit with little or no transparency for millions of other consumers. It is certainly daring, but could also yield an Enron-like disaster if they hoard power and force prices up. Only this time, the law would not allow California to solve the problem on its own, but rather would keep it tethered to other states who don’t care a bit about California consumers. And all this stupidity is only part of what makes SB 540 perhaps the year’s dumbest bill.

 

   -30-

    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

FIRST ELECTED INSURANCE COMMISH WANTS INCUMBENT OUT

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS5
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“FIRST ELECTED INSURANCE COMMISH WANTS INCUMBENT OUT”

 

Think back: When was the last time you heard the former occupant of an important political office, state or national, declaim publicly that a successor of the same political party wasn’t doing the job well and ought to be ousted?

 

If your answer is never, that would be correct. Jerry Brown has never criticized Gavin Newman. During Donald Trump’s first term as president, neither George W. Bush nor his father George H.W. Bush said much about his performance.

 

But John Garamendi has changed that script. An eight-term Democratic congressman from a Central Valley district and the original elected insurance commissioner (he served from 1991 to 1995), Garamendi is sickened by what he’s seeing from Ricardo Lara, the fellow Democrat who now holds the office.

 

He looked on silently for six years as Lara first took political contributions from the insurance companies he regulated, then was forced to return them. He also said nothing when Lara began kowtowing to those same companies by okaying extra-high premium increases. 

 

But he’s now had it. He’s told a San Francisco Bay Area television station that Lara “should go” if he’s unwilling to battle those same insurance companies. 

 

And Lara is demonstrably not willing to fight the hand that fed him, the hand he’s not supposed to hold in any affectionate way so long as he’s in the office he now holds. 

 

For example, when the insurance rates on a building directly next to a fire station in the hilly town of Portola Valley were raised 50 percent this year, Lara said nothing, did nothing to prevent it, even though its very location makes that structure about as fire-safe and risk-free as anyplace could be. 

 

Garamendi pointed out that Lara, when a candidate in 2018, pronounced himself “leery” of insurance rate hikes unless customers were getting something in return, like more extensive coverage or guarantees of renewal. 

 

But that’s all gone by the wayside. Lara has finalized a plan to allow insurance companies to assess massive rate increases even in areas with no significant fire danger without making the concessions he had promised to require.

 

For example, he promised earlier this year that insurance companies would have to cover 85 percent of homes in wildfire areas (where policy cancellations have lately been rampant) in exchange for significantly higher rates. But the regulation he issued said that companies can instead opt to cover only 5 percent more homeowners than they do now.

 

“The commissioner lied,” said the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group. “And companies don’t even have to meet that 5 percent threshold; they can opt out…if they want,” added the group’s president, Jamie Court.

 

Lara’s response was to say new rates will “reflect the risks of where we’re living.” But that’s not true, either, since all homeowners will be paying more, even if they don’t live in fire areas. Said one Santa Monica policy holder who has never filed a fire claim in more than 45 years of home ownership, “Any fire would have to cross an awful lot of city before it got to me, but my rates are going up anyway.”

 

She is not alone. Meanwhile, some owners of city properties in sections of San Francisco with many older homes that have been remodeled in recent years (like Noe Valley and the Mission District) have seen their policies cancelled even though few claims have been made in those districts.

 

That led Garamendi to say, “Over the last three years, I have observed that this commissioner is not willing to take the hard task and the necessary task to stand up to the insurance industry. If the commissioner is not willing to do that…then he’s not doing his job and he should leave.”

 

In short, the pioneering insurance regulator Garamendi is saying “Lara must go.”

 

But there’s no sign of that. As a candidate, Lara said that he was running because “California needs a strong defender, one who will stand up to bullies.” But his predecessor finds he hasn’t come close to doing that.

 

Which leads to an almost unprecedented political scene, with one Democratic party stalwart telling another to depart.

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

HEAD START MAY BE THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“HEAD START MAY BE THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL”

 

A little-hyped effort to gut and likely shut down Project Head Start composes one of the oddest and perhaps cruelest spending cuts mandated by President Trump and his unofficial – but very active – Department of Government Efficiency.

 

This is a cut no voters demanded, despite Trump’s insistence that his entire effort to rid America of programs he doesn’t like is the result of a voter mandate. For one thing, neither Head Start or any other government program was ever voted on anywhere except in Congress, where all existing government programs and departments are vetted and approved, or not.

 

For another, Trump fell short of winning a popular vote majority, winning only a plurality of votes against former Vice President Kamala Harris. So despite his talk of a strong mandate, he really has none.

 

Head Start, which serves about 800,000 low-income children across the country and well over 80,000 in California, was long among the most popular of federal programs, despite having been targeted by Trump in his first administration.

 

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, under whose umbrella Head Start operates, did not respond to calls seeking comment on Trump’s proposed complete defunding of the program by 2026.

 

If they did talk, they might have to get specific about why they’re using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) factors as a cudgel to destroy a program that readies very young children for kindergarten better than any other government program. If it weren’t doing that, there’s no way Head Start would have survived and steadily grown since 1965.

 

Head Start officials themselves cannot conduct lawsuits against their bosses in the Trump administration hierarchy, but the American Civil Liberties Union has made this one of its major projects in questioning Trump’s overall cuts.

 

Many of those cuts have used DEI to allege that schools and universities have favored some ethnic groups over others, especially discriminating against whites in hiring and admissions. Other lawsuits made such allegations several times in the three years leading up to Trump’s second inauguration.

 

In trying to reverse Trump’s cuts, opponents often argue that the administration’s definitions of DEI discrimination are “unconstitutionally vague,” winning a few federal court orders to delay or stop the cuts. No one knows how long those orders will stay in place,

 

One reason for confusion is that Head Start has always needed diversity because the children it serves come from such a wide array of backgrounds. To be effective, the program needs teachers who can instruct in the native languages of students, who often have immigrant parents, even if they themselves are native citizens.

 

For some involved with Head Start, the ACLU lawsuit has been far too little and far too late. Scores of federally-paid Head Start workers were laid off in February, and the Associated Press reported a leaked version of the next federal budget that would shut down the program completely.

 

It's a bit of a mystery why Trump would target Head Start, whose participants are relatively low-profile kids. The program had always previously received strong support at budget times from both Democrats and Republicans. Would Senate Democrats filibuster a proposed budget that eliminates a program almost everyone likes?

 

That’s a big unknown, probably not to be resolved until the fall. Another unknown is whether state and local governments would step in and provide enough money to keep the doors open, even if some Head Start activities would have to be ended or curtailed.

 

Meanwhile, it’s also a bit uncertain who will supervise California’s many Head Start locations in the future if the overall program survives. For early on, Trump’s budgeteers shut down 12 regional offices, including the one covering California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and American Samoa.

 

The bottom line is that the uncertainty surrounding Head Start today cannot help children who need a stable learning environment. But uncertainty is the order of the day under Trump in virtually every federal department except Defense, where massive spending remains commonplace.

 
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

TRUMP ON ‘REMIGRATION:’ HEED THE RHETORIC

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TRUMP ON ‘REMIGRATION:’ HEED THE RHETORIC”

 

Even now, six months into President Trump’s second term, there’s a tendency to disregard President Trump’s sometimes fiery rhetoric as mere big talk. Americans ought to know better by now. Iranians certainly do, after Trump sent bunker bombs into their most secure nuclear facility.

 

Similarly, when he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into Southern California and told them to “do all in their power to…deliver the single largest mass deportation program in history,” he wasn’t kidding. His order led to weeks of protests in affected areas, demonstrations that made no discernible dent in the president’s plans.

 

This suggests that when Trump employs white supremacist memes in speeches and social media posts, he also means it.

 

He did that just after the “No Kings” movement produced the largest one-day set of anti-government demonstrations in U.S. history.

 

In a little-noticed rant on his Truth Social service the next morning, Trump announced that “Our government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came, and preventing the admission of ANYONE who undermines the domestic tranquility of the United States.”

 

Never mind that one would have to be a mind reader to tell in advance which prospective immigrants threaten domestic tranquility.

 

It was Trump’s use of the term “remigration” that should have raised eyebrows, but drew little notice. Historically, the word has meant the voluntary return of migrants to their countries of origin. But, as reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, in modern usage, especially among white supremacists in America and Europe, it’s a euphemism for indiscriminating mass deportation and ethnic cleansing. The term is often used to target non-white immigrants, regardless of their origin.

 

In countries from Albania to Serbia and Tajikistan, that word also has been used in efforts to create all-white enclaves, with some such efforts backed by governments.

 

So it was no surprise when ICE agents without a warrant entered the Montebello auto body shop of Brian Gavidia, twisting his arm and demanding he tell them in which hospital he was born, in order to prove his citizenship. Incidents like this, first reported in local newspapers, have been common in the Southern California sweeps.

 

In the end, Gavidia used his Real ID drivers license to prove citizenship, after being unable to recall the name of the hospital.

 

The incident was not unusual. Gavidia told a reporter, “Latinos in general are getting attacked. We are all getting attacked.”

 

Documented or not, immigrants all over California now experience terror over the possibility of being picked up and deported with no due process, as has been reported in hundreds of cases so far. Construction workers stayed home in droves, roofing and drywall jobs halted, nannies refused to take their young charges to parks and some normally busy neighborhoods became sudden ghost towns.

 

The racial profiling in the ICE raids has been beyond doubt, striking fear in millions of the brown-skinned and netting some U.S. citizens. There’s also no doubt about agents attempting to hide their identity. In an era when almost all local and state police carry body cameras to ensure their behavior is correct, not only do ICE agents carry no cameras, they often wear ski masks to hide their identity. If their actions are correct, why do that?

 

It's in keeping with Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem’s remark to a news conference that ICE raids on everything from convenience stores to family homes will continue indefinitely. Said Noem, “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialist and burdensome government that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country and this city.”

 

Just two days after Noem made that admission of the purely political nature of the ICE presence in California, Trump ordered raids to intensify in Chicago, New York and other Democratic-run cities.

 

Republican states need not worry much – yet – even though Texas called up more than 5,000 national guard troops to ready for responses to possible upcoming raids there.

 

For the other cities and states Trump vocally targeted, none of which voted for him last year, the message is clear: Heed what Trump says. He means every message, even if he backs off or softens some.

 

 
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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GAS PRICES AND REFINERY CLOSURES

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“RESOLVING THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GAS PRICES AND REFINERY CLOSURES”

 

It’s an apparent contradiction: on one hand, state regulators reported in May that California gasoline pump prices since 2015 average 41 cents per gallon higher than in other states, after accounting for taxes, fees and environmental costs.

 

On the other hand, two of California’s large refineries now plan to close soon, one by the end of this year and the other within the first half of 2026. They say they can’t afford to stay open, even though together they make 17 percent of the state’s gasoline.

 

How can gasoline refiners be making the highest profits in the lower 48 states, but still not enough to keep their plants open?

 

To understand this, it’s important to know the average net profit for oil companies varies, with the biggest refiners – the ones supplying branded stations like Chevron and Shell – making more money because of their retail marketing networks, while smaller refiners often supply lower-priced independent brands that pay (and charge) less.

 

State regulation of gas refining is a pretty new thing, dating from a 2023 law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that allows a wing of the state Energy Commission to order that refiners keep higher stocks on hand than previously at times when they’ve recently been caught at price gouging. One such time came in February 2022, when pump prices jumped more than $2.50 per gallon within two days of an outage at one refinery near Los Angeles.

 

When Newsom signed the law allowing this kind of regulation, he accused oil companies of “gouging” and “screwing Californians.”

 

In fact, the state reported this spring that per-gallon excess profits by the oil companies peaked at $2.36 during a fall 2022 price spike.

 

There have been no similar-sized spikes since the new law took effect.

 

So how to explain the scheduled closures of a Phillips 66 refinery near Los Angeles and a Valero plant in Benicia?

 

Even with these refineries charging prices and posting profits consistently well above national averages – but without sudden windfall profits due to occasional outages for maintenance and mechanical problems – that’s what they plan.

 

Says one expert, “The two refineries are closing because they are old and expensive to run and the state’s planned transition to electric vehicles promised a drop in demand.”

 

Also, these refineries serve more unbranded gas stations than the biggest-in-California Marathon refinery near Los Angeles and the two big Chevron facilities at Richmond and El Segundo. So they make less profit than their competitors that supply large networks of branded stations. Maybe they needed to gouge customers once in awhile just to stay open.

 

Pollution also plays a role. Valero Benicia last October was forced to pay an $82 million fine. The state Air Resources Board and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) imposed the penalty for violations involving unreported emissions of harmful organic compounds, including benzene. An investigation showed the violations had been occurring for about 20 years.

 

To fix up both the refineries aiming to shut down would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, an amount they believed they were unlikely to make up soon in the new no-price-spikes era. This situation is not unique: Several refineries in Texas are also closing in response to competition from new foreign “super refineries,” mostly in the Middle East.

 

The closing California plants will likely replace their production with gasoline shipped in from those and other foreign sources, including Indonesia. Chances are, there will be no major shortages, but there may be price increases, which could provide drivers with new reasons to buy EVs.

 

Of course, now that President Trump has eliminated federal EV price incentives and tax refunds, one or both of the outfits that have resolved to shut down may reconsider, as their potential economic futures look better than they did a few months ago.

 

Meanwhile, the remaining large refineries, which may soon be producing as much as 98 percent of California fuel, have no reason to stage a similar shutdown, which promises a long period of stability in this industry after the inevitable adjustment period that would accompany the two scheduled closures.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net