Gasoline prices are at record-high levels for Labor Day weekend in California, despite the fact that prices have been dropping over the summer.

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday:

The average gas price for a gallon in California and Los Angeles was $5.25 on Thursday, which is 5 cents lower than a week earlier, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. The previous record for the start of the Labor Day weekend came last year at $4.39 a gallon in California and $4.40 for Los Angeles.

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Gasoline prices began to rise in spring 2020, with the biggest increases starting January 2021, worsened by the pandemic and the destabilizing influence of the Russian war in Ukraine on the energy market. Before prices began to drop at the start of summer, regular-grade gasoline at some California service stations topped $7 a gallon.

As for Californians who drive electric vehicles — ahead of the state’s ban on sales of new gas-powered cars in 2035 — they are being encouraged not to charge their vehicles in the late afternoon and early evening hours, as part of a “Flex Alert” issued by state energy regulators due to electricity shortages in an ongoing heat wave.

President Joe Biden has claimed credit for lowering gas prices through releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and through asking foreign countries to expand production (though many, notably Saudi Arabia, have declined). However, the dominant factor in lower prices has been increasing expectations of a worldwide recession, lowering demand for oil on global markets.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.