When the Legislature adjourns this month, it will likely leave Assembly Bill 69 still sitting in the Senate Rules Committee, thereby avoiding an election-year debate on whether California motorists should cough up billions of extra dollars when they buy gas.

The measure, introduced by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, and backed by quite a few other Democrats, would delay putting fuel under the state’s cap-and-trade system of reducing greenhouse gases.