SACRAMENTO, California — Republican Assemblymember Joe Patterson introduced a bill Wednesday to delay an update to California’s low-carbon fuel standard that the state has estimated could add 47 cents per gallon to the price of gas next year.
The proposal would bar the California Air Resources Board from updating the program, which is a cornerstone of state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, until January 2026. The board is scheduled to vote on the potentially costly update on Nov. 8.
While few Republican proposals make it past California’s Democratic supermajority, Patterson’s could needle Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom during a special session of the Legislature that Newsom called at the end of August to address gas prices.
Newsom called the special session primarily to pass his proposal (introduced by Assemblymember Gregg Hart) to give the California Energy Commission the authority to require refiners to store more gasoline to try to guard against price spikes such as the one that pushed California gas to an average of $6.44 per gallon in the fall of 2022.
