Supervisor Desmond wants the state to suspend the gasoline tax increase

California will increase its gasoline tax by 2 cents per gallon starting July 1, but a local lawmaker is calling on the state to stop the increase.

County Commissioner Jim Desmond said people are already paying too much, which is causing them to move out of the state.

“This is not the right time,” he said. “People and businesses are leaving California and we are creating an environment where people don’t want to stay here.”

At the press conference in Escondido on Thursday, he said high gas prices would hit families the hardest. Briana Chiddick, a mother of four from Valley Center, was with Desmond at the press conference. She said 2 cents may not sound like much, but it adds up.

“Just to visit friends. Just to buy groceries. Just to go to sports or other extracurricular activities or to get necessities as a family, 2 cents is just an addition to any increase that’s already there,” Chiddick said. “Our groceries are more expensive. Everything we do is more expensive.”

Excise tax changes occur annually on July 1 based on changes in the California Consumer Price Index.

According to the California Energy Commission, fees and taxes increase the price of a gallon of gasoline by $0.89 (rounded to the nearest cent).

• State fee for underground storage tanks: 0.02 USD
• State and local sales tax: 0.11 USD
• State consumption tax: $0.58
• Federal excise tax: 0.11 USD

Effective July 1, the state excise tax will rise to 60 cents per gallon.

According to CalTrans, 80% of highway and road repairs are funded by the excise tax. On average, Californians pay about $300 in state gasoline tax each year.

Economist Joe Silverman of San Diego State University does not believe that high gasoline prices in California are due to taxes alone.

He analyzed the differences between state and federal gasoline taxes in all 50 states.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that the difference between what we pay for gasoline and the national average cannot be fully covered by the gasoline tax,” he said. “It’s still about 50 or so – 50 to 75 cents a gallon that cannot be covered by the fact that we pay a substantially higher gasoline tax than other states.”

He believes oil companies are charging higher prices to prepare for the state’s requirement that all new cars sold in California be zero-emissions by 2035.

“If California actually did have all-electric vehicles,” Silverman said, “what would happen to those refineries? I mean, they’re worth billions of dollars. The oil companies have invested billions of dollars in those refineries and basically they’d be screwed. They’d be wasted.”

The price of gasoline has fallen over the past 17 days, down 28.1 cents from a month ago, according to data from AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. The average price of regular unleaded gasoline nationwide is $5.07.

Silverman believes we’ve become so accustomed to prices above $5 that a 2 cent increase wouldn’t be that noticeable. But he also says it will likely hit low-income workers the hardest because they have to commute the most.