Gavin Newsom’s shameless gas rebate gambit makes California lawmakers’ plans look sensible

The gas rebates proposed by Democratic legislators last week might have seemed fiscally dubious, environmentally questionable and politically transparent. But that was before the governor unveiled his.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $11 billion plan to reward California’s wealthiest SUV drivers for their gas consumption performed the remarkable feat of making lawmakers’ attempts look responsible. Newsom, a self-styled climate leader, thereby signed on to the notion that taxing gasoline is inherently bad and that the goal of state policy is to enable pain-free fossil fuel consumption.

Like the rebates proposed by a group of center-leaning Democrats, the governor’s $400 debit cards would be distributed regardless of income, which would be a profligate misuse of state funds. A competing proposal by Democratic legislative leaders excludes incomes over $250,000, which still covers about 90% of the state’s households but is at least better than sending money to billionaires.

Besides making no effort to target the money to those who need it, the governor went farther than his fellow Democrats — and closer to Republicans agitating to suspend gas taxes entirely — in tying the money to gas consumption. His rebates, meant to cover the cost of a year’s worth of gas taxes, would be awarded per vehicle instead of per person, up to two per household. He also proposed suspending inflation-indexed increases of gas and diesel taxes.

The governor applied a thin coat of green paint to this gas guzzler of a proposal by allocating a little more than a tenth of its spending to mass transit and other environmentally friendly purposes.

While the transportation sector is California’s top contributor to planet-warming pollution, another statistic might have been more salient: the governor’s approval rating, which according to recent polls could use some pumping up.

Spending some of the state’s surplus to help lower-income Californians struggling to afford inflated prices, which affect far more than oil, would be defensible. Buying votes by helping everyone buy gas is not.