Gasoline price caps draw outcry

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Capitol Bureau Chief

Lobbyists and rural gas station operators staged late lobbying efforts yesterday to try to kill proposed gasoline price caps, and lawmakers said final votes in the House and Senate today on the bill may be close.

Souki, D-8th (Waiehu, Ma'alaea, Napili), and other Neighbor Island lawmakers said they received dozens of calls over the weekend from rural gas station owners and operators who worry price caps would shut them down.

"Even here in Honolulu from the rural areas, they feel that if this bill goes through, they will not be able to stay in business, that the caps that they are putting on them are unreasonable," Souki said. "To a man, to a company, every company in Maui that I know of has been calling me and telling me that they don't want this bill."

Lawmakers are poised today to take final votes on more than 100 measures, including bills to impose a nickel deposit on cans and bottles, allow the state insurance commissioner to review and regulate health insurance rates, and to establish a state-backed purchasing pool to negotiate prescription drug discounts for consumers.

The House and Senate floor sessions begin at 10 a.m. at the state Capitol, and debate and voting are expected to last all day. The legislative session is scheduled to end Thursday.

With their relatively low sales volumes and high operating costs, rural station owners in particular are worried that the proposed price caps are too restrictive and won't allow them to make money, Souki said.

State Attorney General Earl Anzai has said the price caps in the bill allow enough of a retail markup for dealers to make money, and in fact allow more of a mark-up than dealers now impose. The bill allows retailers a mark-up of up to 16 cents a gallon for the first year after the law takes effect on July 1, 2003, and sets up a process for adjusting that mark-up in the years that follow.

House Democrats believe the vote on the gas caps in Senate Bill 2179 may be close, but that the bill will pass.

Senate vice president Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Kalaeloa, Makaha), said she hadn't received a lot of calls from lobbyists yesterday — she had already stated her support for health insurance rate regulation and gas price caps — but that she has received letters saying "that (rate) regulation is not a good thing, it's going to increase costs and that the gas cap is going to hurt small dealers."

Hanabusa said she hears her colleagues are receiving some last-minute lobbying on those and other issues.

"I'm getting word that everybody is getting pressured," she said.

Hanabusa said she expects the rate regulation, gas cap and prescription drug bills to easily pass the Senate and added that the bottle bill — while likely to win approval — may receive a close vote.

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club Hawai'i Chapter, said supporters of the bottle bill are also watching the Senate vote closely. Sierra Club members and others visited lawmakers' offices yesterday to drop off empty beer bottles with messages inside urging lawmakers to support the measure.

House Bill 1256 would impose a nickel deposit on most bottles, cans and plastic beverage containers, which supporters said would dramatically increase recycling and reduce litter.

Critics contend the bill would increase beverage prices and be a burden on consumers and retailers, and would do little to slow the flow of rubbish into the state's landfills.

House Republicans today are expected to sponsor a floor amendment to the health insurance rate regulation bill that would remove the authorization for the state insurance commissioner to reject premiums rates if they are deemed to be too high or two low.

House leaders said they expect the amendment will fail, and House Bill 1761 will pass.

Advertiser reporter Lynda Arakawa contributed to this report.