SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Oil refiners profits data just released by the California Energy Commission (CEC) shows that California oil refiners made banner profits in May, $1.29 per gallon. The profit margin compares to 44 cents per gallon profits margin reported by refiners in January.

Consumer Watchdog said oil refiners would have had to return at least $610 million to the state's drivers for overcharges in March through May had the price gouging penalty enacted in 2023 been implemented. The analysis assumes the penalty level would be set at $1 per gallon, an extraordinarily high gross refining margin.

The CEC never developed the price gouging penalty regulation despite being authorized by the legislature to do so under SBx1-2 in 2023. The overcharges amounted to $322 million in May, $266 million in April and $22 million in March. 

"Oil refiners should be penalized for their profiteering, but the state never wrote the rules necessary to help consumers get hundreds of millions of dollars they are owed back," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "The Energy Commission needs to put the price gouging penalty back on the table to deter this profiteering by oil refiners. In the last three months alone, oil refiners should have been penalized at least $610 million and those funds would have been returned to drivers under the law enacted in 2023."

The data was released under SB 1322, 2022 legislation by Senator Ben Allen that calls for the Energy Commission to publish monthly the gross refining margins of oil refiners and other data supplied by the refiners. The most profitable refiner in the market, which is typically Chevron, reported gross profits per gallon of $1.34 per gallon in May.

Allen is co-author of new legislation, SB 493 (Becker), that would make it illegal to raise prices for goods or services more than 10% more than the cost in time of war if the Governor declared a state of emergency. Under the bill, a war emergency would include circumstances where the United States is engaged in sustained active military operations against a foreign power, even if a war has not been declared.

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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog