Gas price regulation With only hours to spare, a House-Senate conference committee voted last night to have the state regulate wholesale and retail gasoline prices.
heads for final votes
Critics charge the bill
reeks of "socialism"By Richard Borreca
rborreca@starbulletin.comThe vote in favor of regulation came only after Senate President Robert Bunda (D, North Shore) added a seventh member, Sen. Carol Fukunaga, (D, Makiki), to the conference committee, to break a 3-to-3 tie. All bills needed to be reported out of conference by midnight.
The gas price cap bill now must be passed by both the House and Senate next week and signed into law before it can take effect. It would allow the state's Public Utilities Commission to determine the maximum pretax wholesale price of regular unleaded gas on a weekly basis. The law would start in July 2003, giving the new Legislature time to fine tune the legislation.
The drive for gas price regulation started this session after the state's lawsuit accusing major oil companies of conspiring to fix prices failed. The state was able, however, to show that while Chevron and other firms were losing money across the country, they were able to reap annual profits as large as $9.5 million in Hawaii. Gov. Ben Cayetano said the profits were huge and unfair, but the suit was settled out of court with the state getting just $20 million of the $2 billion it sought.
Spencer Hosie, the state's attorney in the oil lawsuit, later appeared before a joint legislative committee and urged that some sort of price control legislation be passed. "This is a profoundly un-competitive gasoline market," he said.
Last night, Sens. Fred Hemmings (R, Kailua), Cal Kawamoto (D, Waipahu) and Lorraine Inouye (D, Hilo) voted no, with Sens. Fukunaga, Ron Menor (D, Mililani), Suzanne Chun Oakland (D, Palama) voting yes. Sen. Brian Taniguchi, (D, Manoa) voted yes with reservations. All the House members on the committee voted yes.
Inouye and Hemmings argued that the bill would hurt small gas stations because they could not afford to sell their gasoline at a lower price. Hemming added that the bill was "pandering to the beleaguered consumer" and was "price-fixing and socialism."
But, Rep. Ken Hiraki (D, Downtown), who has steered the bill through the House said it was "taking our own future out of the hands of a few and giving it to the people."
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