California currently has the highest gas prices in the nation, with some counties hitting $7 per gallon.
San Diego resident Jose Gonzalez said the cost of gas is now so high that his boss is paying for it.
“I feel bad because that’s my work truck,” Gonzalez told The Epoch Times. “I know it’s obviously hurting my boss’s pocket.”
Gonzalez, who works in agriculture and drives a RAM 1500 all over San Diego and San Bernardino counties, said his boss is paying $450 to $500 every day just to keep him working. He is paying to fill five other employees’ gas tanks, too, which is roughly coming out to $7,000 a month.
And the state gas tax is expected to increase 5.6 percent, or 2.8 cents, on July 1.
But the gas tax isn’t the only factor hiking up gas prices. According to economist Tim Shaler, California’s gas prices are up to 25 percent higher than the rest of the country “because of its limited supply.”
“The most important reason is California has its own form of gasoline,” Shaler said on EpochTV’s “California Insider” program. “This was imposed on California drivers as a way to mitigate the terrible smog we had in the 1970s; so arguably, it has worked.”
Additionally, California is the only state that imposes a carbon tax. A $20 per ton tax is levied on air and surface modes of transportation which account for up to 50 percent of carbon emissions in California.
Meanwhile, Californians remain without remedy, with the average cost of gas in most counties above $6. This time last year, gas was just over $4, according to government data.
“For us in particular, not only was it the price of gas, but we increased by two cars in this month,” Chino Hills resident and Upland teacher Diana Bonilla told The Epoch Times. "We’re totally feeling that.”
Bonilla and her husband have two children who just got cars. She said this has added an extra burden for her.
Filling up twice a week to commute to work in her Ford Explorer is costing her more than $200 a week.
Bonilla said her family has stopped going on road trips and even simple outings to the beach. She canceled hosting a family Father’s Day celebration over the weekend and said she won’t be hosting for Fourth of July weekend, either.
“I am very apprehensive to do anything that’s not necessary,” she said.
Upland resident Cory Langerfield works in Azusa and said gas prices are part of his everyday conversations with people.
“California is usually a place where you can get to all these different types of unique places on weekends,” Langerfield told The Epoch Times. “Now, those trips you really have to sit and think if you want to do it and if you can afford to do it.”
Langerfield said he and his wife have begun relying more on her car, a Honda Civic, than his GMC Terrain to save a few bucks.
“Obviously that wears, that puts a lot of miles on her car,” he said. “Now, I measure my trip to work in terms of tanks of gas, not in miles, and not in time.”
