Happy Labor Day! Californians to Pay Their Highest Gas Prices Ever for This Time of Year

Rebecca Downs | September 04, 2021 5:30 PM

This holiday weekend, Californians will pay the highest gas price they've ever had to pay for this time of year, at $4.39 a gallon for regular, as Hugo Martin reported for The Los Angeles Times, citing the Auto Club of Southern California. At this time last year it was $3.24 for regular.

His report referred to "unusually high demand" as the rising cost:

Gasoline prices have been on the rise all summer in response to unusually high demand, Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring said. For the summer travel season, the Auto Club had projected in May a sharp increase in overnight road trips that included hotel stays compared with the prior two years. The projection was based on an increase in requests — as much as 1,474% higher — for customized vacation route maps offered to Auto Club members.
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In California, gas prices usually begin to drop in late August as the summer travel season ends. But [Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey] Spring said demand has remained strong, keeping prices from falling. Prices, he said, will eventually drop over the next several weeks as the travel season ends and Southern California gas stations switch in late October to a new, less expensive blend of gasoline.

The price of gas continues to go up in California, as explained by Jeffrey Cawood for The Daily Wire:

According to the Sacramento Bee, “That tax climbs almost every summer to account for inflation.”
“Republican lawmakers (in June) put forward a proposal to suspend state gas tax collections one year, citing the state’s unprecedented $80 billion budget surplus and the financial strains on Californians returning to commutes after COVID-19 restrictions,” The Bee reported. “Their proposal failed in the Democratic-led Legislature.”
The state gas tax increases are tied to a bill passed in 2017 to fund road repairs. California voters rejected a proposition to repeal the tax the following year.
Gas prices in many of the state’s major population centers are at the highest rates since October 2012, when prices in San Diego reached a record price of $4.72 a gallon.