According to AAA, an average of unleaded gas in California costs drivers $5.76 this week. Diesel costs $6.48 a gallon in California to fuel 18-wheelers and vital farm equipment.
The billboards, designed and funded by Job Creators Network, ask Gov. Gavin Newsom why he prefers “oil from [Vladimir] Putin rather than California.”
And there is a good reason for that question.
“Right now,” says Job Creators spokesperson Elaine Parker, "75% of California's oil comes from abroad and prior to the ban on Russian oil, 6% of that was from Russia."
California has a decades-long track record of environmentalism, a badge of honor for its liberal leaders, but that also means fossil fuels and oil production are enemies of that progress. That is why California is banning the sale of gas-powered automobiles and small-gas engines that power mowers, leaf blowers, and generators.
The new-car sales ban is set for 2035 and the ban on mowers and other lawn equipment hits much sooner, in 2024.
Gov. Newsom has also banned hydraulic fracking with an executive order in a state that has oilfields in Kern County, home to the city of Bakersfield and known for its agricultural production.
Back in March, Bakersfield.com reported a bipartisan group of state lawmakers – 21 in all – formally asked Newsom in a letter to increase domestic drilling. That plea came after Gov. Newsom radically changed the mission and name of a state regulatory agency, which slowed down permits for oil drilling.
A total of 67 permits had been approved by March with 1,000 more awaiting review, the news story said.
When combining Gov. Newsom’s executive actions with President Joe Biden Biden's anti-fossil fuel policies, Parker says, small businesses in California “getting crushed” by the high gas prices, especially since the cost of doing business there is already so high.
Job Creators has erected four billboards in the Bakersfield area, and one in Sacramento, and a mobile billboard has been circling the statehouse.
