LOS ANGELES -- Attorney General
Bill Lockyer said Friday there is nothing he can do to bring down the price
of gas right now.
``No, I'm not king,'' he said before his task force on gas pricing
held its last meeting.
He could file a lawsuit against producers, he said, but
that is not a short-term solution.
``If someone walked in with a videotape of a secret meeting to
set prices or a whistle-blower showed up to admit that they had done that
privately, I'd go after them criminally,'' he said, ``but that hasn't happened,
and I don't expect that to occur.
``What we need to do is figure out how to not have this happen
year after year after year.''
As the summer vacation season looms, the price of gas has become
the biggest political issue in the state capital.
On Thursday, some 500 cars and sport utility vehicles drove around
the Capitol, settling on the lawn in front of the building's steps to jeer
lawmakers. Some called Gov. Gray Davis a communist for not dropping the
state tax on gas.
Whipped into a frenzy by radio talk show hosts and advocacy groups,
protesters were joined Thursday by Assembly Republicans. Assembly Republican
leader Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach, was carrying a 6-foot-tall cardboard
gas pump that read: ``California held hostage at the pump: Day 15.''
Since mid-March, when the state's retail gas prices averaged $1.74,
or 19 cents above the national average, drivers have been outraged.
But Lockyer said Friday that state taxes and requirements for
cleaner-burning fuel play only a small role in the state's gas prices.
The real problem, he said, is too little competition -- which allows producers
to jack up the prices.
The historic trend of refinery margins is 25 cents a gallon, he
said. Last year it was 40 cents, and so far this year it's 66 cents a gallon.
``That has nothing to do with the world price of oil,'' he said.
``That's their costs of operating and their profit-taking.''
Californians paid an extra $1.3 billion for gas from January to
August 1999, according to an attorney general's report in November. And
prices in San Francisco were 24 cents higher than the national average.
Legislation is possible, Lockyer has said. State lawmakers from
both parties have proposed several different tax-cutting plans, but no
action has been taken.
There's not much else you can do to increase competition, Lockyer
said: ``It's very hard for a state government to affect international markets
of this sort.''
The legislative task force, representing the oil industry, service
stations, truckers and consumer and environmental groups, started meeting
in January. It will issue a report in May that will be submitted to the
state Legislature.
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