SACRAMENTO, California — The California Energy Commission is delaying a decision it planned to make this month on whether it will cap oil refiners’ profits, the agency said Thursday.
The agency now expects to issue a preliminary proposal in the spring on how to handle the potential profit cap that Gov. Gavin Newsom pitched to lawmakers two years ago as a way to prevent gasoline price spikes, spokesperson Lindsay Buckley said in an email.
The plan is to wrap together that proposal and the one Newsom championed during this fall’s special session that would impose new gas storage requirements on refiners, she said.
“In light of new tools provided by the special session, the CEC is taking a holistic approach prioritizing development of refinery resupply and minimum inventory requirements first,” Buckley said in the email. “Staff is currently assessing how resupply and minimum inventory rules could interact with a potential maximum margin and penalty with plans to present a high-level framework next year.”
