Mystery Surcharge Among Taxes, Fees Added To Gasoline In California
April 19th, 2019Via: CBS:
A University of California, Berkeley professor is drawing attention to a gasoline “mystery surcharge” in the state – unexplained price increases in gasoline which have cost drivers $20 billion since 2015.
Severin Borenstein, professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and former chairman of the state’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, has spent several years crunching the numbers, trying to account for the state’s gas prices, some of the highest in the country.
“I’m very confident in the calculations, it’s really basic arithmetic,” said Borenstein.
The surcharges began in 2015, when the refinery explosion in Torrance caused what was expected to be a temporary spike in gas prices, according to Borenstein. However, the surcharge remained ever since.
“Starting in 2015, they were about 40 cents above where you would expect them to be in 2015. And in 2016, ’17, and ’18, they were between 25 and 30 cents higher than what you would expect,” said Borenstein. “In total, that amounts to paying an extra $20 billion in gasoline since February 2015.
