December 2014 - Immediately following taking the Oath of Office, I introduced Senate Bill 5, which would stop the hidden gas tax, which is going into effect on January 1, 2015. To read the bill, click here. Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R–Fresno) introduced a companion measure, Assembly Bill 23, as well.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) devised this sneaky tax, which is the same board that has already required many of us to pay for unnecessary overhauls or retrofits to our trucks, farming equipment and pumps. This tax will directly hit our pocketbooks at a cost of $101 to $485 a year per vehicle, or between $2 and $10 billion statewide.

This hidden tax — and let’s be clear, this is a tax even though state bureaucrats are calling it a “fee”– was secretly developed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to make us pay for various government programs and subsidies supported by radical environmentalists, such as Governor Brown’s High–Speed Rail (HSR) project.

I’m especially worried about the folks who live and work in our Valley. We’re still trying to recover from the effects of the recession. Unemployment and poverty rates in some of our communities are double or triple the statewide rate and there’s real human suffering being caused by the drought. The last thing that people in the Valley need is another hit to their pocketbook.

SB 5 will prevent a non–elected board of government bureaucrats from gouging us at the gas pump. I hope to get bipartisan support to pass this important measure, because common sense has no party lines.