John Gerardi Guest Hosts - Gov. Newsom’s Absurdly Huge Impact on Rising Gas Prices

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The raft of new taxes and regulations kicking in on
July first that are going to possibly cause fuel prices
to increase by something like sixty five cents per gallon.
And we're going to talk about the absurdly huge impact

(00:21):
Gavin Newsom is going to be having on gas prices
over the next year or two. I am not Trevor Carrey.
I am John Girardi filling in for Trevor today, thanks
to the whole crew at Power Talk. Right after the
Trevor Carrey Show is done at six, comes to the
John Girardi Show, so you have four straight hours of

(00:41):
old Johnny g all right, Gavin Newsom was taking to
the internet to complain, I'm not increasing gas taxes by
sixty five cents.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
They're only going up by one point five.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Cents per gallon.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
And this was approved years ago before I was even governed.
Before I was.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Governor, this gas tax increase was improved. I didn't do
anything to increase gas taxes overlooking the fact that a
bunch of regulations that he okayed are taking effect that
are probably going to result in gas prices going up
by something like sixty five percent. So all right, Oh,
it's a regulation that makes it more expensive. Okay, thank
you so much for not increasing my taxes.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Here's a little.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Write up on it by Alejandro Lazzo, writing for Calmatters.
Dota or controversial controversial climate rule which could raise gas
prices about to go into effect, wrote this on June thirtieth.
California's revamped low carbon fuel standard takes effect on Tuesday yesterday,

(01:46):
despite fierce Republican criticism and increasing democratic trepidation over its
potential to raise gas prices. The new rules, which expand
a program to reduce climate warming gases and clean the air,
ratchet up requirements for cleaner fuels and burden, and broaden
a two billion dollar credit market aimed at cutting emissions

(02:09):
from cars, trucks in freight. No immediate height in gas
prices will occur. In experts say that the future impact
is uncertain because it depends on how much the oil
industry spends on buying credits and then passes it on
to consumers. The previous fuel standard, which was set in
twenty eleven, added nine cents to the cost of a gallon.
UC Davis researcher estimates that the new one could add

(02:31):
five to eight cents per gallon. The Newsome administration is
bracing for more political attacks as Republican legislators at legislators
have seized on the issue. Nah, they're seizing. Republicans always
either pounce or they seize. Governor Newsom's office issued a
fact check memo defending the rule, saying the impacts are exaggerated,

(02:52):
while Republicans in the legislature and Congress say it would
damage the economy because Californians already pay the most in
the nation for gasoline. State Senator Brian Jones requested an
audit of the rule, calling it nothing short of price
gouging by Newsom, hitting Californians where it hurts the most.
Democratic lawmakers last week introduced legislation that would cap the
price of the standards fuel credits in an effort to

(03:14):
rain in price spikes at the pump. Measure is supported
by one of the state's the most powerful Democrats, Senate
President pro Tempoy Mike McGuire, who said it will reduce
costs for drivers across the Golden State while continuing to
move our climate and energy goals full steam ahead. All Right,
let's talk about this because I think the broader Newsome

(03:37):
record on gas prices. Energy affordability is such a disaster
and it is a huge drag on the economy. Energy
costs gas prices impact literally everything. The milk you buy

(03:59):
at the grocery store didn't magically appear in the grocery store.
They don't have cows in the back of the grocery store.
A truck had to drive it. That truck is powered
by gasoline. Everything is powered by trucks carrying things using gasoline.
So when gas prices go up, it impacts everything a

(04:23):
huge amount of the economy, and it's a huge drag
on California, where over a tenth of the country lives.
And we have to kind of understand the whole system
that's going on here. So we have these carbon tax

(04:46):
these carbon credits, where basically you have a certain limit
of how much carbon you as a business can emit.
These gas companies by carbon credits, basically a pay money
to the state to allow them to buy credits they
can trade to allow them to have more emissions if

(05:09):
they pay more. But here's the problem. Corporations don't pay taxes.
There's a certain sense in which corporations simply don't pay taxes. Yes,
they file, they file to the government, they pay a
tax bill, but they pass on the cost to others,

(05:32):
chiefly in the case of gas companies, they pass on
the cost of taxes to you, the consumer. Corporations don't
pay taxes the very often that they don't just sit
Corporations don't just sit there and say, okay, well we
made a billion dollars in profits, but taxes are going
to go up, so now we'll only make nine hundred

(05:53):
and thirty million dollars in profits. No, they don't do that.
They don't just sit there and take it and say, well,
I guess we'll just make nine hundred and thirty million
dollars in profits rather than the a billion that we
made last year.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
No, they don't do that.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Shareholders expect a return on their investment. CEOs have profit
stretch goals that they're gonna meet, and they don't take
that stuff sitting down that, you know, unless you want
to rejigg or the whole system of American capitalism. What
they're gonna do is not just sit there and not react.

(06:33):
They're gonna change something, and that change will be either
firing people, cutting costs, or increasing the cost for the
product or the service they provide, so that instead of
making only nine hundred and thirty million dollars in profit,
they can get back to making a billion dollars in
profit or whatever the number is. And it seems like

(06:56):
this is something that fundamentally liberal don't get. They don't
get that there's like a second order series of consequences
that results from your well intentioned legislation. And that's been
the experience with everything you do, these carbon limits and

(07:21):
carbon credits. Companies are gonna buy the carbon credits and
they're gonna pass on the costs to taxpayers. And that's
why gas is so expensive in California. It's expensive for
that reason. It's expensive because the particular blend of gasoline
that is sold in the pump in California is California specific,

(07:41):
which makes us a gas supply island. Our supply chain
for getting gas to sell at the pump in California
has to be different and separate from the rest of
the country. That limits supply and makes us dependent on
a much small and more rickety supply chain. So you

(08:04):
have Newsom's actions with carbon credits, you have Newsom's actions
with gas taxes and gas tax increases and never trying
to stop gas tax direct gas tax increases. You have
Gavin Newsom never trying to do anything to change the
blend of California gas just have it to be the same

(08:26):
as the rest of the country. And then you have
the most disastrous thing which I feel like should be
talked about every single day, which is what Gavin Newsom
did to refineries in California. All Right, This constant liberal
talking point is price gouging and price spikes for gasoline.

(08:51):
Liberals hate it. Liberals hate that during high demand times
the price of gasoline goes up. It infuriates them. Now
to a certain extent, this is just kind of an
economic you know, it's not an inflexible law, I guess,
but this is just what happens when your when your

(09:12):
supply stays flat but demand goes up, businesses can get
away with charging more. So they do. And it also
helps to kind of there's a certain extent to which
maybe that's kind of helpful to sort of, you know,
moderate a scarce resource so that it's not completely gobbled
up by people who might just want it for sort

(09:34):
of hoarding purposes or whatever. Nonetheless, you know, I'm not
gonna make a moral judgment. I'm just gonna say this
is what happens. Demand goes up, supply stays the same,
price goes up. It just happens, and it's very hard
economic phenomenon to escape. To fix this, Newsom said, no,

(09:58):
we're going to insist that oil refineries refining oil and
gas in California have to maintain an artificially high supply
of gasoline at all times so that supply can always
meet with demand and we won't have price spikes in
the summer when people are right now, as in the
intro bumper for this segment, people are driving in cars,

(10:19):
are going on vacations, so maintain an artificially high level
of supply. And the oil refineries said, are you crazy?
The gas company said, are you crazy? That's adding huge
costs for us to maintain that higher level supply. It
necessarily increases our costs all year round just to avoid

(10:43):
a spike. You're going to just have high prices all
year What are you talking about? And US said, no,
that's what we got because the oil companies are grady
and they're gouging us for prices.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
And it's like.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Oil companies are not more greedy in California than they
are in Oklahoma. They're the same level of greedy. It's
often the same company. They're not more greedy in California.
California law makes it more expensive.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Decisions made by the California legislature over the course of
decades have made gas prices in California more expensive than
anywhere else, including Hawaii, which makes no sense. Hawaii is
a literal island, not the figurative supply island the California
has created itself into being. Hawaii is a literal island.
You can only get gasoline to Hawaii by shipping it

(11:35):
over on a big boat. Of course, their gas is
going to be more expensive. We have made our gas
more expensive through public policy choices, choices that other states
didn't too, and even other Blue states, other very environmentally
conscious Blue states, have made. If we adopted New York

(11:58):
or Oregons raft of environmental laws governing gasoline, our gas
would be enormously cheaper. We didn't.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
It isn't.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
So, and I can't express enough how much effort Newsome
put into this, This idea of having refineries maintain artificially
high levels of supply all year round to avoid spikes.
He introduced this legislation last year. He called for a
special session of the legislature to do it. Meaning there's

(12:35):
like the normal legislature calendar over the course of the year,
where you got to introduce a bill by a certain
point in like February, and then it's got to be
voted out of this committee by this time, voted in
the Florid but there's a whole schedule. Well, it didn't
happen in time. So Newsom introduced a concurrently running special
session of the legislature so that it would have its
own timeline just to introduce this legislation. And the oil companies,

(13:03):
the gas companies told him, I feel like I'm about
to do a Trump impression, but I'm getting my voice
into that.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
The oil companies told him. They said, listen, sorry, all right.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
The oil companies told him, if you do this, it
is unsustainably costly to us. We might shut down refineries.
If we shut down refineries, costs will explode because of
lessened supply. Knewsome knew that was the threat. Knew that

(13:37):
was what the oil companies gas companies were saying, and
he ignored them and just called them greedy and just
plowed ahead and didn't make any concessions and passed his
stupid bill.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
So guess what.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
We are going to have two major oil refineries in
California closed down. Our supply will be massively reduced, and
gas is gonna cost like six dollars a gallon in
a couple of years. And it's all because of him.
It's because of him. It's him and the Democrats. Like

(14:19):
I cannot express enough how singularly misguided this was. How
horribly it's gonna hurt the economy, how much it could
hurt the national economy. I mean, you know, I heard
someone saying the other day about how, you know, Californians

(14:43):
shouldn't just be fleeing for Texas. This is the tremortary show,
Condom valleys, power talk. So older I get, and frankly,
the more kids I have, is it worth it to stay?
Is it worth it to stay here in California? And
is it worth it to stay and fight the good fight? Now?

(15:05):
I think I'm staying. I got family here, I want
to stay. I like it here, I love it here.
This is my home. I grew up here. I'm attached
to this place. I want to grow and advance my
career in this place. I like so much of this place.
But the fact of the matter is that economically, and

(15:28):
in some cases sort of culturally, it's hard. It is
harder and harder and harder to live here when I
know I could sell my house and buy a mansion
in Indiana. I could sell my house and my cost
of living would go down enormously in Indiana or in

(15:52):
anywhere you talking about it. I don't care anywhere else.
I'm not going to Utahn't forget it. But I am
tempted by, you know, Notre Dame. I mean the appeal
of Notre Dame. Like I mean I have. I've done
the Zillow search. Man, there's the nice suburb near Notre Dame,
you know, ten minute drive from Notre Dame Stadium, the

(16:13):
nice suburb where all the college professors live. Oh my gosh,
I could buy a mansion there. I could sell my
house in Fresno, make a killing, and I could buy
a mansion out there. And that's kind of the thing
that frustrates me, is is one just how much farther

(16:33):
my dollar would go in other parts of the country,
especially for you know, a young family like ours. I
got five kids, I got one on the way. That's
a reality that I'm trying to think through here, but
also even just down to like kind of socially and culturally,
all right, Like we're doing this homeschool charter thing, this

(16:57):
public homeschool charter program that my kids doing, which is
a great program. You know, basically to public school, we
are able to pick a lot of our own curriculum.
We're we're able to get money from the state for
educational things like piano lessons and all kinds of stuff.
And of course what's happening, Well, charter schools aren't teachers'
union dominated and guess what, Oh, there's a bill in

(17:19):
the state legislature about getting rid of it or massively
altering it. And it's like, okay, and now we've you know,
are we going to have to bend the knee for
all the kinds of left wing indoctrination that has to
be present within the public schools? Do we have to
jump to private homeschooling? Like are they going to try
to screw with private homeschooling too. It's this sort of

(17:42):
thing that on the one hand, I do want to
stay and fight and make California better. On the other hand,
I find it really hard to criticize someone who doesn't
and he says, you know, listen, I want my dollar
to go a little farther than it does. I want
to be able to sustain my family, maybe on one income,
you know, and build up savings. It's hard to do here.

(18:06):
Now I'm here with family, and I kind of want
to be here for the long haul. Assistant Trevor Cherry
show on The Valley's Power Talk. It's marking the death
knell of trans education stuff, trans indoctrination stuff for children.
A bunch of big things have happened, perhaps the most

(18:28):
significant being a Supreme Court decision from last week Mahmud
the Tailor, where basically what the court ordered is parents
need to be able to have an opt out option
for aggressive educational stuff to promote transgender lifestyles various kinds

(18:52):
of sexual lifestyles as normative when they are kinds of
lifestyles that are deeply violative of the sincerely held religious
beliefs of these parents. Now, the one I guess criticism
I could make of this Supreme Court decision, and actually
it's not really a criticism. I think it's going to
create a delightful mess that I'm actually quite happy about.

(19:15):
Is sort of the workability because basically, California has suffused
its curriculum top to bottom with all kinds of pro LGBT,
protrans all kinds of things that deeply violate my religious
faith as a Catholic, and maybe your religious faith as
an Evangelical, or your religious faith as a Muslim, or

(19:35):
your religious faith as whoever is listening to this who
does not necessarily agree with the modern day liberal panoply
of views about LGBTQ plus ia, abortion, this, that, and
the other. Okay, if you are from a religious tradition
that does not accept all of the Democratic Party platforms

(19:57):
views on sex, gender, etc.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Ruh.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Well, the Supreme Court is basically said that you need
to be afforded and opt out before your kid is
educated in a worldview fundamentally opposed to your own. So
how the heck is that going to work with California
public schools, where again, this stuff is suffused all up

(20:21):
and down the curriculum in mandatory stuff, mandatory stuff within
social science, all kinds of things. I have no idea.
I have no idea how this is going to work.
I have no idea the kinds of lawsuits that people
can that conservatives can now start to make. I think
we've opened the door to this brave new world where

(20:44):
I think something real is going to be acknowledged. Which
is the phony distinction between my ethical views as a
Christian being deemed establishment of religion versus the dominant ethical
views of the left being deemed somehow not an establishment

(21:05):
of religion. All right, let me explain if I tried
to introduce into public school curriculum that it is grievously
immoral to have sex before marriage, that it is grievously
immortal to have sex outside of marriage at all, That
it is grievously immoral for two persons of the same

(21:26):
sex to have sexual relations with each other. That abortion
is grievously morally wrong, that heck, whatever it is. Heck,
I'll even throw in my beliefs is a Catholic that
contraception is morally wrong. Let me throw that into If
I came to a public school and said I want

(21:47):
this in the curriculum, I want students to be taught this.
What would happen, Well, they'd say, you're establishing your Catholic
ethical viewpoints, this is establishment of religion. Or I said, well,
now I think there are non I have reasons for
believing all of those things that don't necessarily depend on

(22:09):
religious revelation. I think I can make natural law based
arguments that don't necessarily depend on Jesus told me so
in order to argue that all of those different things
are bad. Well, we don't care. He's an establishment of religion.
And that's generally how a lot of this stuff is treated.
The ethical dictates of the Ten Commandments. Are liberals completely

(22:34):
up in arms over the idea of putting the Ten
Commandments in the school, Even though a lot of the
stuff in the Ten Commandments is not really establishing anyone
particular religion. It establishes an idea that there is a
God who should be acknowledged and respected. But who that
God is, or the nature of that God, or the
nature of what his revelation is.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Maybe could be up for debate.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Regardless, Liberals view all that as establishment of religion, But
they don't view the promotion of their ethical worldview, which
is every bit as comprehensive as mine, with every bit
as many particulars. By the way, and moral censures against

(23:20):
certain kinds of conduct, like judging certain kinds of conduct,
et cetera. That's the moral prohibition just discriminating against someone
because they're blah blah blah, that they have a whole
ethical worldview of their own. That any kind of sexual
activity as long as it's done by consenting I was

(23:44):
about to say partners, but maybe that implies only two people.
I think there they wouldn't be bound by that. They're
okay with polyamorous whatever. Sexual activity between any consenting grouping
of people is totally fine and condemning it is is
inappropriate and judgmental and harsh. Any kind of negative judgment

(24:05):
against persons of the same sex, efic sexual relations, or
any kind of moral kind of gender is a complete
artificial construct. You are what you think you are and
how you feel inside, and biological sex is not a
relevant factor to your gender identity. That they have a whole,
comprehensive ethical worldview about sex and gender. And for years

(24:29):
we have accepted this ridiculous fiction that me with a
natural law based approach to sex, marriage, gender, biological sex,
et cetera. My thing is an establishment of religion. Their
thing is not, and that's just fundamentally blowny if by

(24:54):
religion you mean a setup in which render to God
thanks for all that he has given me, which is
actually what the word religion sort of means, religio giving back,
rendering back for what you have received. Yes, I guess
my thing is a religion in yours is not because
you don't you know, if you're coming from an atheistic

(25:16):
worldview and you don't think there's a God, then you're
not religious. Sing you're not religioing to that God. You're
not religarating to that God. But it is an ethical worldview.
Both of them are comprehensive ethical worldviews, providing a certain
kind of ethical guidance for children. My thing is establishment
of religion. Your thing is not. Basically what the court

(25:37):
said in Mahammud vi Taylor is that that's all bunk.
They're both comprehensive ethical worldviews, and the dominant worldview of
the left with regards to sex, gender, et cetera clearly
and obviously contradicts in a way that's not acceptable because

(25:59):
it imbirds when's the religious exercise of many many religions.
You may have heard of some of these religions Christianity, Islam,
Judaism makes up about I don't know, half of the
world's global population between those three, So I guess I'm

(26:25):
wondering what is you know. I've said before one of
the things that makes it a little difficult to live
in California is, you know, what kind of ethical if
you have to have your kids in public school? And
by the way, actually the role of this within public
schools in particular, was something Justice Alito talked about. Justice
Alito wrote the majority of opinion in Mahamud Vitaylor, which,

(26:46):
thank God, anything you know never wrong. With Alito, he
talked about a comment made by Justice Jackson. It was
either Justice Jackson or Justice Sodomy or during the oral arguments,
where I think it was Justice Jackson who said, well, listen, listen,
if families don't like being taught about tolerance, you know
how they're framing it about tolerance and stuff like that

(27:09):
for LGBT whatever, Well they don't have to go to
the public school. They can go to the private school.
And just as Ledo said, I think I've got the
quote here, just as Lito made the point of how
insultingly elitist that was, that basically, look, private schools can

(27:33):
be prohibitively expensive. Public school is the only realistic option
that millions and millions of Americans have for their kids.
So this idea that we can just sort of blithely say, oh,
you don't like tolerance, then just go go to a
private school that's not accessible. That case, My movie Taylor

(27:54):
was brought in Maryland. You know how expensive private schools
are in Maryland, Like DC suburb Maryland, like your arm,
your leg, a kidney, indentured servitude for ten years, like
that's what it costs. So I feel like we're on

(28:15):
the cusp of this kind of brave new world with
public schools and the sort of accepted standards that we've
had that yes, public schools may teach your kids about
the full panoply of left wing ideological, ethical viewpoints and standards,
and you're not allowed to complain about it because it's
not establishment of religion, to which I would say, Now,

(28:41):
it's a whole different ballgame, and I really wonder what's
going to change.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
This is the Trevor Cherry Show on the Valley's Power.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Talk gender moment of basically the whole movement is collapsing
and the Mahmoud Vi Taylor Supreme Court case, which is
a huge blow, basically saying, no, public schools don't get
to just teach this to kids without at least giving
parents an opt out. And god knows how that's going

(29:12):
to actually practically work, which I'm delighted in at what
a mess that's going to make. People are going to
file all kinds of lawsuits in California because this crap
is suffused throughout the curriculum. It's just making the case, hey,
you don't get to fundamentally form the morality of kids
in a way that's different from their parents' religious traditions. Well,

(29:36):
this is also revealing the deep unpopularity of the trans movement.
One of the things that the school district talked about
was in cases where they had allowed or where schools whatever,
where people had been allowed opt outs from having their
kids learn about those topics, the class sizes became unsustainably

(29:57):
small because everyone opted out, which they were acting like
is a reason not to do it, That's all the
reason to do it. If none of the parents want
to learn this, if all these parents deeply are upset
at this, then of course there should be more of
an opt out. This basically happened. There's a big news
story about this with the Pixar film that has recently

(30:20):
got released and bombed named Elio. Now, this movie Eleo,
which I still don't really have any idea because like
most of America, I did not go watch it. It
was originally made to have all of these LGBTQ plus
whatever themes in it, and that was a big part

(30:41):
of the story. And Pixar at the last minute got
rid of a bunch of those themes from the movie
before its release, and the whole thing was kind of
a rushed mess. And so the super libs who work
within Pixar are furious at this, you ruined us. The
thing they gloss over though, and the story with all

(31:04):
this reporting on it was Pixar massively changed Elio after
the original cut was test screened, and not a single
person raised their hand when asked if they'd pay to
see the film in a movie theater.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
That's the story from.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
The Hollywood reporter who kind of glosses by that there's
a lot of stuff in it all. How terrible it
is that they that the studio meddled to ruin this
work of art by this director. But no one in
the test audience would say they would pay to see it.
Not one. That's impressive. You do a testing in Hollywood

(31:45):
with you know, liberal a lot of Democrats, a lot
of liberals down there, not one person was going to
raise their hands saying they would pay to see this.
Because that's the thing it's not. It's not about, and
it belies a couple of things. One the constant narrative.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Of we're just trying to teach acceptance. We're just trying
to teach that gay people. You just object to us
telling you that gay people exist, or that trans people exist. Look,
if the problem was whether these people exist, why aren't
there any books in the public school library.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Why aren't there any books in these curricula about Mennonites.
Mennonites exist. Some people are mean to Mennonites. It's a lifestyle.
I bet you there's more Mennonites than trans people. I

(32:43):
don't know how about or surgically trans people. Anyway, Why
do we not have the same level of effort about
the Amish, Mennonites, seeks people. People are super mean to
the Sikhs. People confuse them with Muslims all the time.
They have a turban on their head. Oh, they must

(33:03):
be bad people. They had a lot of they had
a lot of crap that they had to go through
after nine to eleven. How about how about books about Sikhs?

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Because no, we don't care.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Because if it's genuinely just about these people exist and
are in our community, that's one thing. But no, what
these books, with these curricula, with these efforts at pushing
the transgender are about. It's about pushing this as a
morally normative thing. The insistent tremor carry show them on

(33:34):
the Valley's Power Talk