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Neale Mahoney, the George P. Shultz Fellow and incoming director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Institute, has been appointed to California’s new Independent Consumer Fuels Advisory Committee.

The advisory committee on Oct. 14, as Gov. Gavin Newsom signed new California legislation aimed at preventing price spikes at the gas pump — a law that Newsom “a big deal” given that the state is the world’s fourth largest gasoline market.

The law allows the state to require oil refiners to maintain a minimum inventory of fuel to avoid supply shortages that create higher gasoline prices for consumers and higher profits for the industry. Mahoney had testified in September before of the California Legislature on the proposed bill and has called it “an economically sound policy that addresses an important problem in a well-targeted way.”

Mahoney, a professor in the Department of Economics at the School of Humanities and Sciences who served as a Special Policy Advisor for Economic Policy at the White House in 2022-2023, joins five other experts, community leaders and consumer advocates appointed by the governor to the Independent Consumer Fuels Advisory Committee. The committee advises the California Energy Commission and the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight.