Orange County Supervisor Foley passes out $100 gas cards to alleviate pain at the pump

Hundreds of locals lined up Tuesday at Costa Mesa’s Orange Coast College to receive a free $100 gas card intended to ease the sting of high gas prices amid a nationwide period of inflation.

The event was hosted by County Supervisor Katrina Foley, who used her allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to pay for the distribution, which served approximately 750 pre-registered recipients.

“Big Oil raking in record-breaking profits and inflation for Orange County families is untenable,” Foley said in a statement Tuesday. “The launch of this program represents my commitment to directly help residents impacted by the rising inflation by returning taxpayer dollars back to the taxpayers.”

Some 750 pre-registered motorists received a $100 gas card from Katrina Foley Tuesday at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, the first of several pop-up events the Supervisor is planning.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Orange County supervisors in March called for the state to suspend its $0.51 per-gallon gas tax to help alleviate the pain at the pump and advocated on behalf of using a portion of California’s $45-billion surplus to provide tax relief to residents.

Gov. Gavin Newsom soon after announced a $9-billion cash rebate program, a “Middle Class Tax Refund” that would offer from $200 to $1,050 to Californians who lived in the state for at least six months in 2020 and met certain income requirements.

A representative for Foley said Tuesday the supervisor planned to dedicate $500,000 of ARPA funding toward hosting similar pop-up gas card distribution events in the future. For updates, visit bos2.ocgov.com.

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