Gov. Newsom proposed a tax rebate amid record-high prices at the pump but rejected calls to increase oil drilling, saying he wants to free the state “once and for all from the grasp of petro-dictators.”
“We need to be fighting polluters, not bolstering them,” Newsom said. “And in the process of so doing, freeing us once and for all from the grasp of petro-dictators.”
“Gas prices are out of control. Let’s suspend the gas tax, stop using foreign oil and focus on energy independence policies that don’t place new burdens on working families,” said Republican Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares, who issued the Republican “prebuttal” to Newsom’s speech. “We must end the energy policies that punish Californians while rewarding countries like Russia and China for their bad behavior.
Newsom has ordered the state to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035 and halt all in-state oil drilling by 2045, a move some Republicans argue will only increase the state’s reliance on foreign oil. Meanwhile, in 2019 and 2020, the state abandoned nearly 4,000 oil and gas wells, meaning they are no longer productive. But Newsom’s administration didn’t halt the drilling of new oil and gas wells during that period — more than 2,600 wells were drilled. Just 243 wells were drilled in the first nine months of 2021, according to preliminary state data.
“While we might not have strongmen literally waging war in our country, we are plagued by agents of a national anger machine, fueling division, weaponizing grievance,” he said. “Powerful forces and loud voices — stoking fear and seeking to divide us, weakening the institutions of our democracy.”“We know that government cannot be the entire solution, but we also know that government has always been part of the solution,” Newsom said.
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