Michael Giberson
A new legislative session in Connecticut brings with it another bill proposing to ban zone pricing of gasoline in the state. But the simplicity of the proposed bill makes it look like they’re not really trying. Here is the body of the bill (all of it):
AN ACT BANNING GASOLINE ZONE PRICING.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened:
That the general statutes be amended to ban the wholesale pricing of gasoline based on a service station’s geographic location.
Statement of Purpose:
To ban the wholesale pricing of gasoline based on a service station’s geographic location.
Would it remain legal to price wholesale gasoline based upon the expected willingness-to-pay of a service station’s customer base?
(And if the wholesaler doesn’t price based upon an estimate of a station’s customers willingness-to-pay, will anything in Connecticut law prevent the station owner from setting retail prices based on what they think customers will pay? And assuming that question is answered in the negative, then isn’t it clear that the proposal is an attempt to give gasoline retailers what they want, not some sort of consumer protection?)
It isn’t surprising that the two sponsors of the bill (Rep. Tong, 147th District, and Rep. Fox, 146th District) are from the relatively-high-gasoline-price Stamford area. Maybe they even think that gasoline prices will be lower for their constituents if their bill became law. They should check in with New York to see how that state’s now-2-year-old zone pricing ban is going.
NOTE: More zone pricing posts here at KP.
OK, I’ll admit I’m from Texas, which likely has distorted my perceptions, but I was surprised Connecticut was even big enough to have zone pricing.
Big differences in typical consumer income/wealth and demand for gasoline between the close-to-NYC communities in Southwestern Connecticut, like Stamford, and much of the rest of the state. See the charts in http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv30n2/v30n2-noted.pdf