If you live in California you’ve probably run across ads blaming high gasoline prices on state laws and policies. They’re online, on television, in mailers, on highway billboards and even on gas pumps themselves. One of them asks in big, bold letters “why is our gas expensive” and directs you to a “facts per gallon” website that complains about government gas taxes and fees.
Their aim seems clear: To undermine these new laws that threaten to expose just what money-grubbing polluters and planet-wreckers oil companies really are. It's only the latest iteration in a years-long effort by the fossil fuel industry to sow disinformation about its environmental impacts and the transition to zero-emission technology that has included a campaign targeting California's Latinos.