Why in the hell is fucking gas up to $4.00 for reg. in Ca.

[Left2Tackle]

24. The same reason they blow up here in IL all the time.

Special formulations which, for one, use a heavy amount of ethanol. Now that and farm subsidies are a whole other topic entirely.

"In 2001, John Cook, then the head of the petroleum division of the Department of Energy, called Chicago/Milwaukee an "island," along with California; you may recall that, over the years, Chicago often competes with different California cities for some of the nation's highest gas prices:

The result of this targeted approach to air quality has been to create gasoline market islands. The primary examples are California and the Chicago/Milwaukee areas, in which the required gasolines are unique, and only a limited number of refineries make the products. The inventories of gasoline used in these regions can be drawn down rapidly in response to unusually high demand or a supply problem at one of the few refineries producing the specialized products, or in one of the pipelines delivering the products. Prices for gasoline in these regions then surge. If other gasoline markets are not tight, the prices surges may be limited to the specialized gasoline regions, as we have seen historically in the case of California."

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/March-2012/Why-Gas-Is-So-Expensive-During-the-Summer-And-Especially-in-Chicago/