When dealing with prices in North America, Californians are the ones who take it in the shorts every time. California's oil production is far larger than most people are aware and some domestic oil companies like Standard Oil and Union Oil Company use California oil exculsively for local demand and for export to other states.
Yet, when the east coast has an issue, like bad weather, we have our prices jacked up. Civil unrest in overseas nations (where we don't even get oil from) sees our prices getting jacked up. If the prices drop to a certain point, a refinery "magically" has a mishap, or has to go through maintanence, jacking our prices up.
On top of that, California had a specially formulated fuel, called MBTE which made our fuel more expensive because of the additional formulation. Well, about 5 years ago, they dropped the additive, because it was seriously carcinogenic after combustion and getting into our ground water as the airborn pollutants settled. After they discontinued the additive, you would suppose they'd drop the price to standard levels, but they never did. So we take it in the rear from that debaucle as well.
Case in point, I just filled my Scion today...price for regular unleaded was $4.39 a gallon at the corner station...it's FAR higher out by the Interstate.