Oil wars, oil taxes, and Caifornia Assembly Bill 656The energy and transportation infrastructure, like that of the U.S., is ultimately an infrastructure fueled by the oil wars, most of all in Africa and the Middle East, the second and third largest sources of U.S. oil imports, second and third to Canada. California, however, is the third greatest oil producing state in the nation, second only to Texas and Alaska, and, the tenth greatest natural gas producing state. It is also the only state that does not tax an oil and gas severance tax, at the wellhead, and, were it a nation, it would be the only nation. California Assembly Bill 656 proposes an oil and gas severance tax for "the privilege of severing oil or gas from the earth or water in this state," to fund higher education, especially renewable energy education, wich would train a generation capable of helping California make a transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy.
