Lingle blasts Dem
critique of gas reportThe governor denies influencing
data that oppose price controls
Democrats are playing politics with Hawaii's sky-high gasoline prices, Republican Gov. Linda Lingle said.
While saying the state has some role to play to lower Hawaii gas prices, Lingle told reporters yesterday that she is still against placing a cap on the price of gasoline.
Legislators approved a gas cap bill last year that is scheduled to go into effect next year. In preparation for that, the Legislature ordered a $250,000 study on how the plan would work. The report, prepared by Stillwater Associates, was released earlier this week.
According to the report, gas caps would actually drive up the price of gasoline and create shortages as retailers sought to increase the price of their product. Caps would also limit the sale of the regulated gasoline, the report said.
Democrats in the House and Senate blasted the report, and some, such as Rep. Ken Hiraki (Kakaako-Downtown), charged that Lingle had manipulated the report's findings because she was opposed to the plan.
Lingle said she has only read the report's summary, and denied that the administration attempted to influence the report.
The report's authors also denied Hiraki's charge.
"I hope we will be able to work with the Democrats in the Legislature in a more positive way than they have been; they seem to want to politicize it from the bringing," Lingle said.
"The report is telling them, 'Don't do this, it will be bad,' and they go against the report," Lingle added.
House Speaker Calvin Say (D, Palolo) defended the Democrats, adding that he was in favor of the gas cap plan.
"We are here as Democrats to protect the consumer and do what is fair and just for the price of gasoline," Say said. "I don't think we are politicizing the issue, just bringing the information to the forefront for the public to know where everything is going."
But Lingle pointed to a effort by the Democrats in last year's House races to send "hit mail" pieces to voters telling them that Republican candidates were beholden to the oil lobby and had voted against consumers.
Republicans complained that the Democratic program did not discriminate between GOP legislators who voted for or against the gas cap, which had gotten bipartisan support in the Legislature.
"They sent out negative hit pieces against Republicans knowing they were false," Lingle said. "There are some who feel that this is such a charged issue that they want to 'demagogue' on it, instead of finding a real solution.
"I am committed to finding a real solution because gas is too high in Hawaii."
One suggestion from the Stillwater report that Lingle favored would be for a more accurate and comprehensive gasoline price monitoring project to provide the state attorney general with accurate information about gasoline prices.
Lingle said such information could be used to check if gasoline prices were being manipulated.
