The Petroleum Market Advisory Committee (PMAC), created by the California Energy Commission to explore solutions for market instability within the petroleum industry, has appointed a renowned professor from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business to serve as its new chair.
Severin Borenstein, who teaches business administration and public policy at Haas and serves as a research associate at the school’s Energy Institute, joins four other leading petroleum fuels market leaders as the newly appointed chair of PMAC. Together, the committee will offer independent advice to the Energy Commission and state regulators on issues that affect the market, ranging from local policies to global trends.
Other committee members include James Sweeney, director of the Stanford University Precourt Energy Efficiency Center; Amy Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at University of California, Davis; Kathleen Foote, senior assistant attorney general and antitrust chief at the California Attorney General’s Office; and Dave Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates.
Out of the gate, Borenstein has pledged to address California’s gasoline prices, which he says “have been way out of line with the rest of the nation since mid-February, much longer than in previous price spikes.” “This is costing California consumers millions of dollars every day. Taxes and the cost of our cleaner burning gasoline do not explain the differential,” Borenstein said in a press release announcing his appointment. “I hope to bring together all stakeholders to have a serious discussion about why our gasoline prices are unusually high.”