Interesting, I hadn't realized that NYC gasoline taxes were higher than California. Looking into it, there is some reason to argue that California higher is higher if you apply a broader definition of "tax".

Here's an article showing the breakdown for California: http://watchdog.org/232083/california-gas-taxes/

And here's for New York: http://legacy.wgrz.com/story/news/2015/01/07/new-york-gas-pr...

But since the articles are using a different base price per gallon, I'm not sure what the actual difference is.