Fuel companies have been charging Californians a mysterious gasoline surcharge for the past decade, costing residents $59 billion, a state watchdog agency concluded in a report released Thursday.
What happened: While California does have unique taxes, fees and environmental programs that add to the cost of gasoline, prices in the Golden State are significantly higher than can be explained by those add-ons, the California Division of Petroleum Market Oversight concluded in its report. Between 2015 and 2024, that surcharge averaged $0.41 per gallon.
“This surcharge is not transparent, and to the extent it represents increased profit margins, it offers no direct public benefit,” the agency wrote.
Why it matters: After years of study into why Californians pay some of the nation’s highest gasoline prices, the DPMO report represents a first-of-its-kind study of price dynamics drawing from confidential industry data companies must disclose to the agency. University of California, Berkeley, professor Severin Borenstein first introduced the idea of a mystery gasoline surcharge in 2017.