LOS ANGELES, California — A gas station in Los Angeles sold fuel for nearly $6 per gallon on Memorial Day weekend, as fuel prices continued to soar across the nation.
The Mobil station across from the Beverly Center shopping mall, near Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, was selling regular unleaded gasoline for $5.29 and 9/10 per gallon on Monday evening, and “Super Plus” for $5.99 and 9/10 — self serve, without assistance or a car wash.
Those prices were unusually high, even for Los Angeles, where many stations charged between $4 and $5 per gallon over the holiday weekend, and the average is currently about $4.22 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com.
GasBuddy.com also notes that there are also stations in parts of the L.A. metropolitan area that are still selling fuel for less than $4 per gallon. But some stations are nearing the $6 per gallon mark, driven by high demand, supply shocks, state taxes, and growing market speculation about reduced future supply.
The Biden administration has tried to soothe public anger over gas prices, claiming — incorrectly — last week that Americans are paying less for gas today than the average for the past 15 years.
But President Joe Biden’s first acts in office were to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and suspend new oil and gas activity on federal lands, signaling that the U.S. was abandoning the strategy of energy independence championed under President Donald Trump.
Moreover, while the recent hacking of the Colonial Pipeline did not affect California directly, it created concern across the nation about supply shortages.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has also declared that the state will phase out gas-powered vehicles (and, hence, gas stations) in favor of electric vehicles, banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
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 new e-book, We Told You So!: The First 100 Days of Joe Biden’s Radical Presidency. 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.