California’s updated low-carbon fuel standard takes effect Tuesday, potentially increasing prices at the pump as it speeds up the fuel industry’s required emissions cuts.
The impact of the revised rules is hotly debated. But experts say they could add 6 to 15 cents per gallon to state gasoline prices over the short term, if oil refiners pass along added costs. California gas prices are the highest in the nation at roughly $4.59 per gallon.
The policy “will tend [to] gradually increase the per gallon charges on gasoline over time,” Colin Murphy, associate director of the Energy Futures Research Program at the University of California, Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies, said in an email.
But estimates are challenging because many other factors affect gas prices, Murphy said. Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board argues there’s no direct link between the policy and higher gas prices.
